Agriculture and Agricnlttirists 



339 



should remember that, as unionists, they can 

 never become farmers, as have thousands in 

 various parts of the United Kingdom, and 

 as have many in this district, some in this 

 room. 



LOCAL SOCIETIES AND SHOWS. 



I will now conclude by reminding you of 

 what I said four years since in this room, viz., 

 that greater benefit is derived from district 

 agricultural societies and shows than from 

 larger ones, such as the Royal Agricultural 

 Society and others of a similar description, as 

 you are more interested in the agriculture of 

 your own district than you can be in those 

 remote from it. I retain that opinion mere 

 strongly than ever, and will venture to assert 

 that there are scarcely any farmers present 

 who have attended any of these large shows 



more than once, if at all, but who regularly 

 attend this, and do so because they are inter- 

 ested in it, and so with other farmers as to 

 other district shows. Also because they have 

 not many miles to travel to and from them. 

 I, therefore, advise you to extend the useful 

 ness of this association as much as possible. 

 I recommend you in future to offer prizes for 

 approved agricultural implements and machines 

 — for machines and implements must supply 

 the place, to as great an extent as possible, of 

 scarce and high-priced labour. If our com- 

 mittee and secretary will arrange for prizes to 

 be given next year to the exhibitors of such 

 machines and implements, I shall be happy 

 to provide a silver cup as one prize. For 

 the great scarcity of labour, a more ex- 

 tended use of all kinds of machinery can alone 

 remedy. 



DISASTROUS HARVESTS. 



THE Aberdeen Free Ffess has an article 

 under the heading of " Disastrous 

 Harvests," which goes back a century and a- 

 half to find parallels to the present deplor- 

 able season in the north. It seems that from 

 1693 to 1700. " so cold and barren " were the 

 seasons that for a good part of the time 

 something like absolute famine prevailed 

 over a considerable part of Scotland. The 

 general character of the seasons in the above 

 era is thus described by an old chronicler, 

 writing of the south and west of Scotland : — 

 " Our harvests not in the ordinary months ; 

 many shearing in November and December; 

 yea, some in January and February; many con- 

 tracting their deaths, and losing the use of 

 their feet and hands, shearing and working 

 in frost and snow ; and after all, some of it 

 standing still and rotting upon the ground, 

 and much of it of little use either to man or 

 beast, and which had no taste or colour of 

 meal." 



In the year 1782 again, the harvest in 

 Scotland was late ; and on the 5th October, 



when " the oats and barley were generally 

 green, a frost," we are told, " armed almost 

 with the rigours of a Greenland climate, 

 desolated in one night the hope of the 

 husbandman." In short, a great proportion 

 of the standing grain was so injured that it 

 never properly filled or ripened, and pinch- 

 ing want, amounting in not a few cases to 

 starvation, prevailed during the following 

 season in these northern regions. The pro- 

 duce of the harvest of 1782 in Aberdeenshire 

 was estimated at only 80,000 bolls, or less 

 than one-third of the average crop. 



This picture, dusky as it is, is un- 

 fortunately not unlike the one that will have 

 to be stared in the face by Aberdonian 

 arable farmers this year. It is pleasing to 

 think that the pastures were exceptionally 

 good this season, and the prices of fat stock 

 uncommonly high, so that there will be some 

 little set oft" by horn against corn. And yet 

 the counter-balance will not be so heavy as 

 it looks upon paper, for feeding cattle are so 

 dear to the purchasers that the prices made 



