1829.) Monthly Agrivultural Report. 559 
planting commenced in the middle of the month, and is now proceeding generally with 
expedition. : 
! The hop market remains in the same dull state in which we have'so long found it, quite 
guiltless of those revolutions by which, in former days, so many speculators were accustomed 
toprofitandtolose. It maybethat theculturehasincreased, or speculation decreased. In this 
state of things, we have the news, that the county of Stafford is making its début inthe hopeul- 
ture, by way of experiment, as it is averred ; as though hops would not grow in any county 
of England, because good cheese can only be made in the cheese counties; at any rate, 
that fact has appeared, strange as it may seem, on various actual trials. The corn markets 
have varied little of late. The foreign supply has been, and continues to be, ample, not- 
withstanding the increase of duty, and much of it is of fine quality, particularly the white 
wheats ; the best samples of which have been sold at six shillings per quarter above our 
best home-grown wheats, a thing unprecedented in days long past, if we except Cape of 
Good Hope wheats, of which we saw cargoes of the earliest import, most beautiful in sam- 
ple, and then said to weigh as heavy as clover seed. We once attempted to grow Cape 
wheat in this country, but without success ; it seeméd to require the genial warmth of an 
African sun. The catile markets afford no novelty : steers are said still to be too high in 
price for the grazier to expect much profit; milch cows considerably reduced in. price, 
Some fresh complaints are abroad of the loss of lambs, but to no great extent ; and the rot 
has said to have re-appeared in the west, in consequence, probably, of the late moist and 
rainy weather. The price of ordinary horses has suffered a still further decline ; but the 
paucity of good ones, too invariable to reflect much credit on English breeders, has held 
such fully up to their accustomed high rate. We-hear of seventy, and even seventy- 
five pounds, given at a fair for a cart-horse! and the import from Belgium, continues 
with little or no reduction. In fine, it seems, that foreign assistance is indispensable to 
us, in all the prime necessaries, however capable our soil may be of their production. 
The late corn bill, as new modelled, on its second introduction into Parliament, has 
given as little satisfaction to the public at large, as to our cultivators of the soil. Bread, 
the first object, is yet at a price above the ability to purchase of an immense body of our 
labourers. On the other hand, our home-growers of bread-corn, loudly insist that it is at 
a price too low for them to live by its production; a. proposition too plainly proved by 
many of them, who are unable to pay their rent. ‘Temporary relief has, however, been 
afforded by benevolent landlords, who have, of late years, been in the habit of returning a 
per centage on the rents. But whither does this beneficence tend, but to an attempt to 
perpetuate high prices? A vain and dangerous attempt, considering the critical and un- 
paralleled state of the country, with respect to both its agricultural and manufacturing 
population. A great part of the former are without employ, or the means-of subsistence, 
and have, in consequence, degenerated into prowling hordes- of poachers and marauders: 
The whole, indeed, may be described as in a state of slavery, and dependence on parish 
_ charity, since their highest wages are insufficient for the maintenance of a family. It is 
less to deny that such has ever been the case in a great degree, however we may be dis- 
to laud “ the good old times;’’ and we do but deceive ourselves, if we expect relief 
m any superficial and temporary measures, however plausible and ingenious. The 
tional disease is inveterate, urgent, and will submit to none other than heroic remedies: 
these are, REFORM, AND RETRENCHMENT OF TAXATION, TO THE UTMOS®? 
POSSIBLE Limits. Even so, and were such a stretch of patriotism possible, in this 
eat and luxurious country, where political morality is necessarily at so low an ebb, it 
ould still be impossible utterly to exclude so great a share of poverty and distress for the 
recarious remedy of private charity. Yet we find active and speculative intelligences in- 
efatigably engaged in spinning out plans, by virtue of which, our system of poor laws may 
_ be gradually, and in a few years, ultimately and safely repealed. These are more properly 
essays cwm ratione insanire. ‘They go to argue, from the abuse of an institution of mere 
_ justice and indispensable necessity, against its use. Complaints are reiterated by our 
__ flockmasters, of the impossibility of making sale of their wool, with the allegation, that the 
Price is depressed to the rate ofa century past. But surely this need excite no surprise, 
since the public, generally, and the land proprietors, with the gay tenantry themselves, 
tefuse to be coarsely clothed in their own wool. As toa free import of bread-corn, its im- 
perious necessity remains incontrovertible, when we compare the frequent trifling quantities 
of home-grown wheat which haye appeared in the metropolitan market, with the abundant 
foreign supply ; but for the aid of which, many parts of the country would now have been 
in want of bread, 
_ _. Smithfield.—Beef, 38. 6d. to 4s. 8d.—Mutton, 4s. 4d. to 5s. 8d.—Veal, 4s. to 6s. 44. 
—Pork (Dairy) 4s. to 6s.—Raw fat, 2s. 5d. 
Corn Exchange.—W heat, 50s. to 78s.—DBarley, 27s. to 38s.—Oats, 12s. to 32s,— 
Bread, the London 4b. loaf, 104d.—Hay, 42s. to 85s.—Clover, ditto, 50s. to 105s.— 
Straw, 28s. to 38s, 
Coals in the Pool, 24s. 6d. to 36s. per chaldron. 
Middlesex, April 24th. 
