1831.] Agricultural Rej)orl. 583 



opinion prevails that fat hogs will advance in price. At the great horse fairs, cart 

 colts of superior breed and size were worth between 30/. and 40/. The Principality 

 still upholds its ancient character of a cheap country, good beef and mutton being 

 there to be purchased at four or five-pence per lb. On wool there is little or no 

 variation in demand or price, but much in opinion : the sellers speculating on a 

 rise, from the low stocks in the country, which the buyers, depending on import, 

 do not much apprehend. 



Wheat sowing has been equally early and expeditious as the harvest. The 

 usual mouths for this process are September and October, and the old opinion still 

 prevails, that, for poor and weak soils, the first fortnight of either of those months 

 IS to be preferred, the latter for the strong and fertile. The facilities offered by 

 the present season have encouraged the sowing a very extensive breadth of wheat, 

 which indeed seems annually increasing ; and the moist and warm weather has 

 drawn above ground the earliest sown so quickly, on rich lands, that it is supposed 

 much of it will be too forward in the grass, or winter proud. All the fallows, and 

 even the clover and bean stubbles, said to be generally in good condition, are, or 

 will be, covered with wheat ; whilst in less favourable seasons much land, intended 

 for wheat, is of necessity left in winter fallow for spring crops. Some, but not 

 material, impediments to sowing, from either drought or too much moisture, have 

 here and there occurred. The old question which has been in agitation during a 

 century, surely long enough for men to make up their minds, on the subject of 

 sowing, or drilling, or broadcasting, of seed corn, is now fresh and in dispute among 

 the farmers of various counties. The drill seems slowly and gradually prevalent 

 in the best cultured districts. It is, however, the improved drill of which we (not 

 speculatively) have seen no cause to entertain a very high opinion. The intervals 

 or rows are too narrow to admit of a thorough cleaning tne land, and we not only 

 ever grudged the land to weeds, but were seriously of opinion that, as a farm is of 

 infinitely more importance than a garden, the former surely demands equal atten- 

 tion in being preserved free from exhaustion by weed vegetation. The extra 

 labour required by a periodical and effective cleaning the land would give addi- 

 tional employment to our superabundance of hands, and every crop would repay 

 the extra expense. There is no argument in the inability of poor farmers to incur 

 an extra expense, since they who possess the means are equally averse to the 

 experiment, one, in the meantime, which, properly conducted, has left no example 

 of failure since the days of old Jethro Zull, its parent. Wo have before spoken of 

 the surplus of agricultural labourers, treating it as improbable to submit to any 

 measure short of a regular and permanent scheme of emigration under the sanction 

 of government. An operose calculation on the expense of this plan may be found 

 in Rufty's Farmer's Journal of the 17th instant, a periodical of the most extensive 

 circulation and the highest repute on country affairs. The base, cowardly, and 

 treacherous crime of incendiarism, unhappily and disgracefully no novelty in this 

 country, still breaks out in various instances, and the apprehension of probable 

 victims during the coming winter, when want of employ will render pauperism 

 still more desperate, is really horrible. Great numbers of hands are expected to 

 he shortly destitute of employment. Horse stealing has lately prevailed in the 

 West. During the last three years upwards of one hundred thousand emigrants, 

 from this island, have reached Canada, yet there is still a great demand for labour 

 at very ample wages. We have scarcely ever before known threshing wheat for 

 market so extensive and universal : this appears to have two motives, the one, and 

 the chief, a provision of the needful for the payment of rent, no doubt with many 

 in arrear ; the other among monied farmers, and there must be some or many such, 

 a good opinion of present prices. So assiduously have the flail and threshing 

 machine been kept in operation, that it was said, some time since, one quarter of 

 the year's crop of wheat would be sold in flour before old Michaelmas. That 

 exclusive and degrading imp of feudality, the old Game I>aws, is at length 

 repealed, to the universal satisfaction of men who have any correct idea of human 

 rights. " No less than one-seventh of the whole criminal convictions in P'.ngland 

 and Wales, for three years, to the end of UVM) inclusive, were for offences against 

 the Game Laws." 



Smil/ifu'ld. — Becf, 38. 0(1. to 4s. 2d Mutton, 4s. Od. to 5s. Od.— Veal, 4s. Od. to 



5s. 2d.— Pork, 4s. Od. to 53. Od IJest Dairy 5s. Od — Hough fat, 2s. 7d. 



Corn li.ccham/e. — Wheat, 48s. to (iOs. — ISarioy, 25s. to 44s Oats, 20s. to .'Us — 



London loaf, 41b. lO^d — Hay, 55s. to 848. — Clover ditto, (i5s. to 120s. — Straw, 

 2 Is. to :u;s. 



(.'oul K.rcliani/c — Coals, in the Pool, 1/ts. 9d. to .'JOs, Od. per ciialdroii, addition 

 of alxmt IOs. \K-r ciialdron for cartage. 

 Midd/escr, Oitnhcr 2\st. 



