322 THE FLOEAL WOELD AND GAEDEN GUIJ)E. 



in once more, and at the time of writing this, the heavens are dripping 

 with a woful flood. The effect of the cold autumnal rains has been 

 more marked and mischievous in the potato field than anywhere 

 else amongst the subjects of the husbandman's anxieties. The 

 potato disease has prevailed more or less wherever the tubers were 

 in the ground after the first week of August. A brief but brilliant 

 period of sunny weather ripened the earliest kinds by the middle of 

 July in all the southern parts of Britain ; and, generally speaking, 

 the crop was large and without blemish. But all the later kinds 

 have been devastated. Seldom have we seen crops so promising, as 

 to the size and abundance of the tubers, or so generally useless on 

 account of the general spread of the murrain. In all damp and 

 heavy soils the losses have equalled in magnitude and completeness 

 those of the worst years of potato plague, but on some dry quick 

 soils the crops have escaped, and have been stored in plenty and 

 good condition. Looking forward, all is of course, uncertain. We 

 cannot lift the veil that hides the future ; happily for us it is so. 

 But we see no encouragement to anticipate a good season in 1867 

 to make amends for the failures of the present year. The farmer 

 must grieve that a soddened condition of the ground delays the 

 ploughing of stubbles and the sowing of seeds. The gardener finds 

 that many trees are still growing, that the wood of the season is for 

 the most part soft, that a period of fine, dry, breezy weather is 

 needed to ripen the wood and put the trees to rest before winter 

 overtakes them and kills back their callow shoots. 



It is not our wont to indulge in gloomy forebodings, and a 

 cheerful spirit is at all times suitable, if only to help us to bear 

 misfortunes with fortitude, provided it does not tempt us to shut 

 our eyes to the truth, or take the warnings that nature offers us 

 for our safety. AV e would not, therefore, be less cheerful than usual, 

 but a sense of depression is inevitable in the present aspect of 

 things, and in the consideration of what we feel to be a necessary 

 part of our anticipations for the future. Our seasons occur in 

 cycles, so many good years and so many bad ones. We appear to 

 have passed through a cycle of good seasons, and to have entered 

 upon a cycle of bad ones. If it be so, we can scai'cely expect that 

 1867 has many advantages of production in store for us, and we very 

 much fear that a general deficiency of crops must occur again, not once 

 only, ere we enter upon the enjoyment of the maximum advantages and 

 capabilities of our climate. Such a gloomy prospect could not be 

 fairly entertained in the absence of data, but it is solely on data, the 

 accuracy of which cannot be disputed, that we are led to fear that 

 we shall not have an abundant and splendid summer until the 

 year 1869. 



It is one great advantage of our insular position that a general 

 failure of crops rarely occurs. Even in this dripping aiitumn many 

 large and fruitful tracts of land have been favoured with sunshine, 

 and the productions of the season have been gathered in plenty and 

 safety. It has seldom happened in this country that actual famine has 

 paralyzed the strength of man, and the droughts, the deluges, the 

 insect plagues common to many other lands, are known only in a 



