al lhe al : [ Ave. 
MONTHLY AGRICULTURAL REPORT. 
_ Twe long continuance of drought, and absence of those seasonable and genial 
showers, so indispensable to the health and improvement of most of the earth’s pro- 
Guctions, must necessarily render the present inferior in good promise to our last report. 
Wheat, as is its nature, has received less damage than any other crop; and, in fact, 
granting a favourable harvest, will nearly answer our most sanguine expectations. On 
lands of the best quality and the best farmed, the bulk of wheat appears great, both 
in straw and corn, and both the acreable quantity and the quality will equal the best 
years. On middling and thin soils the ears appear small, the stalks short and weak, 
and the whole not bulky. We have nevertheless seen, on poor stony soils in this 
county, wheat under the sickle which promises between three and four quarters per acre of 
white wheat, the sample fine and pure, the blight upon an ear here and there not 
reaching beyond the chaff. Of a selected plant among the heads, the stalk was stout, 
more than a yard and half in length, and the number of kernels in the ear sixty-eight ; 
the average number of kernels, perhaps, forty. It is, in the common phrase, a wheat 
year: the quantity promises to be above an average, the quality fine, with very little 
discoloured or smutted, and the straw clean and pure. The wheat crops on the 
Continent, and in Ireland, bear much the same report. 
It is on the spring crops that the drought has had such an unfavourable, and, too 
generally, ruinous effect. Indeed, it is a God-send where any of these have escaped, 
and may possibly turn out productive. Of barley and oats, in some parts the former, 
in others the latter, have suffered the least injury: but in none can there possibly be a 
productive crop. ‘The beans and pease have suffered still more; short in the haulm, 
thinly podded, and eaten up by the blight insect. Both those and oats we haye seen 
cut green in Kent and Essex, as fodder for live-stock, the grass being entirely consumed 
or burnt up. The artificial grasses and seeds have suffered in the same degree, sainfoin 
excepted, which is generally said to succeed with wheat. Potatoes are complained of 
from various parts: but they appear in this county with a deep and healthy green, 
which is really promising ; and, in fact, the culture is so extensive, that there need be 
no apprehension of an adequate supply. Of hops we hear few or no complaints. The 
hay harvest, a very light one, was quickly and successfully finished; but much of it 
was really made before it was cut; and that which had much making afterwards, must 
have been so exhausted of its juices, that it could retain little substance or condition. 
Of turnips the tale is disheartening; sown and resown, they were still blighted and 
devoured by the blight insect ; and should no further sowing take place, there cannot be 
half aturnip crop in the country—a misfortune to our winter-stock feeding system, as 
would seem scarcely to admit of any remedy. But the twenty-four hours of rain, 
commencing on the 22d instant, p.m. with all the appearance of its being general, has, 
it may be hoped, afforded us an adequate remedy. It is not yet too late to sow turnips 
with the prospect of a useful crop. This soaking rain will also have the best effect on 
the stubborn clods of the clay-land wheat-fallows, hitherto altogether impracticable 
with the strongest teams. The early sheep-shearing proved fortunate, considering the 
heat and drought which ensued. The cattle have sutfered excessively from the flies, and in 
many parts from want of water, most of the resources of that kind being dried up. ‘The 
hives, it is said, will not be productive this year, from the bee-flowers being exhausted 
of their fragrant juices by the excessive heat. In wool, no improvement in demand or 
price—stock piled upon stock, both here and upon the Continent. No demand for 
bark. From the scarcity, it is remarked, that the price of beans will exceed that of 
wheat, Most kinds of fruit are in great plenty, and a productive crop of the cyder 
apple is expected. Live stock, both fat and lean, meet but a dull sale in the country ; 
indeed, considering the prospect for winter keeping, the demand for stores cannot be 
very brisk. Prices of horses, of all descriptions, still receding. The present harvest 
has been among the earliest. Wheat was cut in Essex in the first week of this month. 
The Lent corn, much of it, became too suddenly and early ripe, before it had attained 
fulness and. maturity. The spring crops in Scotland are of better report than 
ours in the South, and wheat harvest in the Carse of Gowrie will probably commence 
next week. 
The condition of our agricultural labourers is somewhat improved ; and there is ob- 
viously a growing intelligence among the better sort of them, who condemn strongly 
the mischievous and useless conduct of their unfortunate brethren, the operative manu- 
facturers. At the same time, they remark, with much point, on those causes which 
have produced such an excess of poverty and wretchedness, in a country superabound- 
ing in all the goods of life; assuming boldly, that these national grievances must be 
redressed: and surely there is patriotism, honesty, and talent sufficient, in this most 
substantially great and opulent country, to work out its salvation, or rather to preserve 
its very existence. But our out-door lunatics, it seems, will accept this boon solely 
from that ‘ gigantic intellect,’ which, endowed liberally by nature with the ‘ gift of the 
gab,’ both oral and scriptural, disperses abroad, with a hundred-horse power, the bor- 
