The Country Gentleman's MagarAne 



2S1 



AN ESTIMATE OF THE CROPS, 



MR JAMES SANDERSON has given 

 his usual annual estimate to the 

 limes of the crops, and with the usual elabo- 

 rate figures about rain-fall, copied from the 

 observations of a gentleman at Clifton. We 

 cannot say that we agree in all his remarks. 

 We do not believe from our own observations 

 over many parts of England and Wales, and 

 Scotland, that the wheat crop is a fifth under 

 average, as he declares it is. Our own opinion 

 is, that it is short in the straw, and that 

 the quality of the grain may not be so excel- 

 lent as we have seen it, but that, on the thresh- 

 ing floor, it will not yield much less than 

 average. Neither, so far as our own observa- 

 tions have extended, (and we have been 

 through the counties which Mr Sanderson 

 has surveyed) is there such a deficiency as he 

 reports in barley. Instead of being 10 per 

 cent, under we have thought that over the 

 whole country it will be quite an average 

 crop. We agree with him that on the whole 

 the oat crop is fully above the average, 

 but at the same time that there are many fields 

 in various parts of the country very deficient 

 both in straw and ears. 



With his observations upon the leguminous 

 crops we entirely coincide. We never saw 

 better [crops of beans all over the country 

 from the west of England to the south of 

 Wales, and the east and middle of Scotland, 

 than we have seen this year. Peas also in all 

 parts of the country where they are grown 

 have plenty of straw and are well podded. 



It is agreeable also to be at one with 

 Mr Sanderson in his remarks that the 

 potato crop was very luxuriant up to the 

 middle of last month. Perhaps the reporter 

 might have said about the beginning of July, 

 since which time sad havoc indeed has been 

 wrought upon the tubers. In no year with- 

 in our memory since 1845, ^^.s so much 

 damage been done to potatoes in the same 

 space of time. 



It is interesting to note that the weather 



of that year, whose disastrous influence was 

 the means of conferring a great boon upon 

 the consuming community by convincing Sir 

 Robert Peel that the Corn Laws ought to be 

 repealed, was of a precisely similar character 

 01 that we have experienced this year. A 

 writer to the Times, Mr Langhorne, has com- 

 pared the meteorological tables of this year 

 with those of 1845, ^i""^! his remarks thereon 

 are that " it is curious to observe how in 

 both instances heavy thunderstorms pre- 

 vailed. This," he adds, " has, perhaps, been 

 already noticed by scientific men ; but as I 

 have nowhere seen any connection surmised 

 between the extraordinary electrical condi- 

 tion of the atmosphere which characterized 

 the summer of 1845 ^^^^ the present summer 

 with the potato disease, I have thought it 

 worth while to make a note of the circum- 

 stance for others more fully to investigate." 



The facts mentioned by Mr Langhorne 

 have been observed by others, but we are 

 none the less thankful for cumulative evi- 

 dence. So virulent is the disease in Lincoln- 

 shire that we are told by Mr John Algernon 

 Clarke, in the Times, that Lincolnshire farmers 

 will lose from ^^15 tO;^2o per acre by the crop 

 and that over the whole country the loss will 

 amount to something like thirty million sterling, 

 which seems rather an exaggerated amouiit, 

 although the statement receives confirmation 

 from a London gentleman on the strength of 

 letters from Ireland. In our topic depart- 

 ment we give a description as to how to 

 utilize diseased tubers, from the pen of Dr 

 Hooker, of Kew Gardens. 



And now, to return to Mr Sanderson. We 

 cannot agree with him that " the root crops " 

 (meaning, we presume, turnips and mangolds, 

 potatoes having been mentioned before) are 

 everywhere good. Our own observations are 

 to the effect that they are extremely abundant 

 and healthy in some places, and that neither 

 second nor third sowings give token of any- 

 thing but useless expense ; in others, the 



