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THE FARMER'S MAGAZINE. 



THE RESULT OF THE HARVEST IN FRANCE 



We have from time to time given an abstracted ac- 

 count of the state of the harvest in France, which has 

 been quite as late and as protracted as in England. The 

 report given last week was what may be called the 

 winding up in that country ; for although in some of 

 the mountainous districts there is still some corn in 

 the fields, the bulk of the crops are housed. In the 

 more southern departments, indeed, they have been 

 thrashed out ; so that a fair estimate may now be 

 made of the general result, by collating the various 

 reports together. 



At the beginning of August the weather in the centre 

 of France, where the harvest was then in progress, 

 was so constantly wet and unfavourable for the ma- 

 turing of the crops ,that great apprehensions began to 

 be entertained. Towards the end of that month, the 

 continuance of the rain became so alarming as to in- 

 duce the Emperor Napoleon to issue a decree for the 

 suspension of the law of the sliding scale. This was 

 to the following effect : 



Napoleon, by the Grace of God and the will of the nation, 

 Emperor of the French, to all present and to come, 

 health : 

 Relative to the article 34 of the Law of 11th Oct., 1814 : 

 On the report of our Minister. Secretary of State for the 

 Department of Agriculture, Commerce, and Public 

 Works, 

 Have decreed, and do decree as follows : 



Article 1. — Grain and flour imported whether by land or 

 by French ships, or those of foreign countries, and without 

 distinction of production or flag, shall be subject only to the 

 minimum of duties determined by the law of the 15 th April, 

 1832, until the 3rd Sept., 1861. 



Art. 2. — Up to the same period the ships of all flags 

 which arrive in the ports of the empire with cargoes of grain 

 or flour shall be exempt from tonnage dues. 



Art. 3. — The provisions of the preceding articles shall be 

 applicable to all French or foreign vessels whose clearance- 

 papers state that the cargoes of grain or flour shall have been 

 completed and the departure effected from a foreign port what- 

 soever before; the 30th Sept., 1861. 



Art. 4. — Our Ministers and Secretaries of State in the De- 

 partments of Agriculture, Commerce, and Public Works 

 and in the Department of Finance, are charged, each in what 

 concerns him, with the execution of the present decree. 



Given at the Palace of St. Cloud Aug. 22,; 1860, by 

 The Emperok. 

 To the Minister Secretary of State, &c., &c. 



E. ROUHER. 



This measure is a sufficient indication of the appre- 

 hensions entertained by the authorities in France at that 

 early period of the harvest. A month later, the editor 

 of the Journal d^ Agriculture Pratique (M. Barral) 

 speaks of the weather in the centre and north of France 

 as having in some measure moderated, so that the 

 wheat had chiefly been carted ; and that by using the 

 moyettcs, which have been described in thisjournal, 

 the grain had sustained less injury than might have 

 been expected. The oats were then still in the field. 

 Reports from the different districts in the same number 

 of the Journal, and which were transferred at the time 



to our own, gave the same rather favourable view of 

 the case. But on the 5th of Oct. the editor writes : 

 " The weather has continued cold and rainy, and 

 quite unfavourable either for completing the maturity 

 of the crop, or for housing them, or for the preparation 

 of the land for the autumnal sowing." He then 

 quotes from a letter he had received : " The oats 

 are still in the field, and God knows when we shall be 

 able to house them"...." Never was the farmer so 

 badly off, even in 1816. I ask myself, ' When and 

 how am I to sow the wheat that is to succeed the beet- 

 root?'" This latter crop, it appears, is very poor, 

 the roots being small and deficient in saccharine, 

 owing to the want of sunshine ; whilst the ground was 

 so saturated with moisture that some of the farmers, 

 who had also sugar-works, and had begun to rasp the 

 roots for manufacturing, were compelled to stop 

 owing to the impossibility of carting the roots from 

 the fields. 



In last week's number is the abstract report of the 

 termination of the harvest, which is far from satisfac- 

 tory. It is generally assumed that had the weather 

 after July been favourable, the wheat crop would have 

 been a full average one, with probably something be- 

 yond it. But owing to the ungenial and wet season 

 which has prevailed, until the last fortnight, 

 the grain has not been properly matured, and is con- 

 sequently inferior in quality, being shrivelled and defi- 

 cient in weight. This corresponds with the state of 

 the crops in this country ; and as the grain becomes 

 drier, it will become more and more apparent. 



On the 13th October, the Editor of the Journal 

 d'Agriculture Pratique reports from Besancon as fol- 

 lows : " I write this chronicle far from Paris" (235 

 miles to the south-east of that city). " The great 

 subject of anxiety with the farmers is the continuance 

 of weather at once very rainy and very cold. We have 

 had snow falling constantly for more than one day, and 

 covering the summits of the Jura ; succeeded by a 

 deluge of rain, which no longer finding the soil spongy 

 enough to absorb it, has caused the overflow of a great 

 number of streams. The after-gi-ass crops are drowned ; 

 the oats remain spread over the fields ; and even, in 

 some parts of the Haute-Marne, all the wheats are 

 not housed. In the north many sugar manufacturers, 

 who had begun to work, were compelled to stop their 

 rasps, presses, and furnaces, so difficult was it to cart 

 the beet-roots." "We find in the meteorolo- 

 gical report, and in that of the harvest, many details 

 confirmatory of those we have stated. This has given 

 rise to serious apprehensions, especially in regard to 

 the wheat sowing. Many can neither plough nor sow; 

 and others who have sown, find their wheat deluged 

 with water, or destroyed by insects, by a thousand 

 earth animals, and especially by slugs, which swarm 



