1830.] Agricultural Report. 721 



deficient .quantity of seed. We incline to refer it to other causes. The best new beans and 

 Spring tare seed are much in request. Broad clover seed which can be depended on, com- 

 mands any price that can be asked. According to our late information, the wheats in the 

 East Riding of Yorkshire have the least promising appearance of those in any other district. 

 On forward soils, the chief occupation at present is preparing the land for turnip seed ; more 

 generally the completion of barley sowing and potatoe planting, which among the most 

 backward will scarcely end with May. 



A finer or more bulky appearance of the grasses natural and sown has scarcely appeared 

 in any season, and the present warm and showery weather will still increase the bulk. In 

 our country, hayset will commence with June. What is to be done with the stock of old 

 hay, is yet a mystery ; much of the ordinary sort however, has lately been sold for litter, 

 as more easily obtained than straw, which is as scarce as hay is superabundant. It is said 

 that grass lands in Scotland let readily at the old rents, with occasionally some advanced. 

 As to live-stock, the fall of lambs, notwithstanding certain drawbacks, has been eminently 

 successful, and they who possess the means, or the power of earning the means, need be un- 

 der no apprehension of a want of either lamb or mutton. What a national disgrace it is that 

 such numbers both able and willing to labour must inevitably be (shall we say ?) defrauded 

 of their fair share of this common good ! Hence the horrible dissolution of morals, venge- 

 ance, destruction, incendiarism, by which we have been so long and constantly appalled ! 

 Store stock of all kinds have perhaps advanced from ten to fifteen per cent, at the great 

 fairs, excepting those where the numbers have too far exceeded the demand ; and as this 

 has occurred somewhat frequently, it manifests the great extent of stock in the country. The 

 graziers and feeders, sore and apprehensive from their ill success during the last year, pur- 

 chase with trembling caution and little hope, and too many must do so on credit. Of 

 horses, all we have to add is ditto long since and often repeated the ordinary kinds, when 

 they can be sold, persuade an ordinary price ; the superior, all that can be demanded for 

 them. Our Scottish farming brethren, in mockery of the distress of the times, have yet the 

 spirit to part with, from thirty to forty and fifty pounds each, in exchange for good draught 

 horses. The hops have had a visit from the fly during the intervals of north-eastern tem- 

 perature, but are nevertheless strong and luxuriant in bine, and thus far of good promise. 

 Little variation or no advance in price. It is the general opinion that there need be no 

 apprehensions of the coming crop of apples equalling the superabundance of the last, from 

 the damage received by the trees during the unfavourable months of the past summer ; 

 other fruits are of the highest promise, yet much destruction must have been made of the 

 blossoms by the late storms of wind. 



For novelties, his Grace the Primate has, with equal policy and patriotism, moved for the 

 " Composition of Tithes :" the times are not yet ripe for their abolition! A new species of 

 cattle food is under late recommendation the symphytum asperrimum, or prickly comfrey, 

 for which we refer to the Farmer's Journal, May 17- The produce is immensely bulky, 

 and cattle must be accustomed to it, before they will take it readily ; always the case in 

 our country, so fruitful in natural grasses and the superior kinds of the artificial. More- 

 over, where the quantity superabounds, the quality seldom or never holds way with it. Mr. 

 Lawrence, after the example of the late Mr. Young, took great pains to introduce the cul- 

 ture of Millelot, so extensively used on the Continent, but without success ; our animals 

 indeed, horses particularly, will eat it, but they have the good taste to prefer superior green 

 food. Our brother scribes of Scotland continue decidedly vermincous, top-full of the fly. 

 fancy, and from the Carse of Gowrie, as usual, smartly severe upon us corruptionists. 

 Nevertheless and however, corruption ever precedes the generation of the aphis, and no cor- 

 ruption of blight, no aphides. Where the devil then are they in genial seasons, when those 

 beautiful insects are neither seen, felt, heard, nor understood ? But as our brethren seem 

 so solicitous to obtain a new understanding of this winged subject, they doubtless further 

 meditate a war of extermination against the flies, on the success of which we congratulate 

 them in prospectu. From Chichester we learn that the buyers and sellers of corn have 

 gone to loggerheads, on that most important subject the imperial measure. Surely the 

 most rational and easy mode of settling the difference would be in the difference of price. 

 Equally sure is the legislative absurdity of not making the rule equally imperative as im- 

 perial. The reader is requested to correct a press error in the last Report marygold should 

 be read mangold or beet. 



Smithfield Beef, 3s. 2d. to 4s. 2d Mutton, 3s. 2d. to 4s. 4d Veal, 4s. 2d. to 5s. 4d. 



Pork, 3s. 6d- to.4s. 8d. Lamb, 5s. Gd. to 6s. 9d. Raw Fat, 2s. Id. 



Corn Exchange Wheat, 48s. to 80s.; foreign, 53s to 90s. Barley, 24s. to 40s 



Oats, 19s. to 32s London fine 4-lb. loaf, 10d Hay, 40s. to 100s. per load Clover, 

 ditto, 60s. to 105s. Straw, 46s. to 55s. 



Coals in the Pool, 27s. to 35s. 6d. per chaldron. 



Middlesex, May 24. 



M.M. New Series. Vol. IX. No. 54. 4 Z 



