iSoDr Remarks on Pores failing, '^c. 415 



to the conductors of the farmer's magazinii. 



Gentlemen, 



I HAVE perufed with fatisfa£lion, and not without inftruc- 

 tion, the three firft Numbers of your Magazine j which, if it 

 continues to be condu£led upon the principles laid down in 

 the introduftion, promifes to be ufeful to the agricultural in- 

 terefts of Britain. No part of the work is entitled to more 

 credit, or appears to be drawn up with more judgement, than 

 the lafl Quarterly Reports of the ftate of our agriculture: thefe 

 undoubtedly are derived from the beil: fources, and convey a 

 faithful detail of the ftate of the feveral diftridls mentioned. 

 i fay this, not from the perufal of your corre£t and accurate 

 account, but from ocular evidence in many cafes, and the beft 

 information in others. 



It is, therefore, with a mixture of indignation and difguft, 

 that I have lately perufed the paragraphs inferted in many of 

 our newfpapers refpe£ting the ftate of the crops, and the fu- 

 ture pfofpedls of the country with regard to provifions. At a 

 pretty advanced period of the prefent year, vegetation was fo 

 backward, that farmers of the beft judgement did not expedt 

 the harveft would be earlier than laft year ; and certainly no- 

 thing ftiort of the uncommon and long continued heat and dry 

 weather, during the months of July and Auguft, could have 

 fhortened the period of our expectation, or altered the prof- 

 pe£ts of the country. About four weeks ago, owing to the 

 early part of the crop having whitened (it would be abfurd to 

 fay ripened) prematurely, and the reft advancing rapidly to the 

 fame ftate, there was, till the late rains, every appearance of an 

 early and a general harveft. At that time, the newfpapers, with- 

 out attending to the clrcumftances that had gone before, inqui- 

 red, " what had become of the predictions of thofe who fore- 

 told that the harveft would be a late one, and the grain ripened 

 under all the difadvantages of a declining fun ?" Had the Edi- 

 tor of the paper, or the Author of the paragraph, looked 

 back at the period at which the obfervation was made, and 

 calculated the probable chances in favour of its fulfilment, the 

 inquiry would have appeared unnecefTary : Experience, dearly 

 earned, indeed, to the country, affords a diftrelling proof, 

 how far even a week of bad weather may alter the moft flat- 

 tering profpei^s i for, though we can now reckon five weeka 



M m 3 fince 



