674 Monthly Agricultural Report. [Juneg, 
all lands the common opinion is, that harvest, whatever may be its success, must inevitably 
be late. In most poor districts, a small portion of the failing wheat has been ploughed up, 
and barley substituted. All the early sown spring crops are said to exhibit the fairest 
prospect ; and, perhaps, on an average of seasons, early sowing is attended with the least 
risk. The forwardest of these look well and promising, perhaps oats the least so. Beans 
and peas have varied much in their appearance ; and that portion of the spring seeds which, 
from the ungenial state of the weather, laid too long inert in the soil, much of them perish- 
ing or devoured by vermin, have produced thus far thin and unthrifty crops. It has 
proved an expensive and harassing season, particularly to the farmers of wet and heavy 
lands, who, in numerous instances, have been compelled to repeat the ploughing and 
culture of their lands to enable them to deposit the seed, a sudden change of the weather 
having rendered the surface, previously friable and culturable, baked and consolidated. 
The season has been most unfavourable to heavy and undrained lands, the surface of which 
appears parched and arid, whilst all below is a chilling dampness, most unfriendly to vege- 
tation. Potatoe planting is nearly finished; and, as usual, a vast breadth of that second 
bread planted throughout the island. The chief spring business remaining is to get in 
the Swedish turnip, and mangold, or beet, for which the lands, in too many parts, are said 
not to be in the best state of preparation, especially those characterized as subject to be 
overrun with charlock ; in which state of subjection they have been and will be suffered to 
remain, from father to son, by their anxious cultivators in secula seculorum. 'The culture 
of winter beans is spreading and successful. General opinions are always variable, and not 
much entitled to dependence: it is now averred that the last wheat crop was not more 
than half an average, and that there is less wheat, or any other grain, in the hands of the 
farmers, at this time, than during any former similar period. Markets are on the advance, 
both for ordinary and fine samples, which will bring forward large quantities of forei 
corn. The apprehension of the blight insect, fly or flea, has produced some speculatio’ 
and advance of price, in that hitherto unusually dull article the hop. Barking the o 
took place in the beginning of the month, with a continuance of favourable weather 
securing the bark. . Fruit is said to promise generally, with the exception of part of t 
wall fruit, which has suffered from blight. Vegetation is said to be nearly three we 
later during the present, than the average of seasons. 
In the forwardest lands of this county, cutting grass for green food began about the 20th 
of the month. The great quantities of hay remaining on hand, with the stocks of roots of 
those who were provident enough to store them, proved most fortunate, by enabling the 
farmer to support his stock until the grass lands were ready for their reception; another 
good effect in such a case, is the avoidance of turning cattle upon wet and poachy lands, 
whence the grass is sure to sustain a lasting injury. Great complaints, however, are made 
of the low condition of the stock from the home-fold, in consequence of the general bad 
quality of the hay, the best, it may be presumed, having been disposed of. The accounts 
from fairs and markets, in different and distant quarters, vary much. In some the sales 
are represented as brisk, and the prices good ; in others the reverse. The rot has cer- 
tainly prevailed to a very serious extent; and in Lincolnshire especially, and the fen dis- 
tricts, the diminution in the number of sheep is said to be enormous and alarming. In 
many parts, the unfavourable state of the weather occasioned a considerable loss of lambs. 
The season for a decline of price has arrived, and it has taken place, even in pigs, which 
have so long remained stationary at a high price. The scarcity of good horses preyents 
their decline in value ; and the import of Belgian cart horses still continues, with no reduc- 
tion of price. Milch cows, and heifers, to come in this season, are somewhat cheaper. 
Complaints from the country are universal and incessant, at the same time urged with 
a sufficient quantum of passion and irritation. Effects, lamentable enough indeed, appear 
to us attributed to wrong causes, whilst the real and fundamental are kept, either from 
misapprehension or design, entirely out of view. Free trade, which, by-the-by, has never 
yet taken place, a contraction of the currency, and want of money, are stated as the prime — 
operating causes of distress. There can be no real or actual want of money in a most 
opulent country, possessing a currency both metallic and paper, equal to every possi ~ 
contingency of commercial transactions. As to a slackness of trade, such state is neces- 
sarily periodical, however prosperous the times, and a vast and increasing population pe 
sessing the means must be supplied. The state of the labouring population, both agricul 
tural and manufacturing, is truly dreadful and appalling, and the general dissolution ‘of 
morals and want of principle among them, truly lamentable to those who are most disposed 
to commiserate their unfortunate sufferings and privations. Great blame ought certainly _ 
to attach both to the manufacturers and the government, that timely measures were not 
adopted in prevention of those excesses, and that wanton and unprincipled destruction of — 
property, which have so disgracefully taken place. Nothing, however, as is evinced by all 
experience, is so difficult to states and opulent bodies of men, as to take warning. Will 
such difficulty remain in our state, until the great crisis expected by our seers shall arrive ? 
In North Britain, the rent of grass lands is said to have declined from twenty to thirty per 
cent. ; and we have before us a letter from a tenant, who must have thrown up his lease, 
‘but for a very considerable reduction of rent to the remainder of the term, assented to by 
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