68 On the Blight or Mildew of Wheal. 



Mod y Golfa, with a long range of Wtlsh mountains rising 

 in full majesty beyond them ; and on the other, by their 

 no mean rivals, the Wrekin and Stretton hills. The view 

 of Shrewsbury, betwixt the branches of the adjoining wood, 

 particularly when the setting sun gilds every object with his 

 mellowest ligbt, is greatly and most deservedly admired. 

 The walk from Shrewsbury is pleasant and picturesque; and 

 the neighbourhood of a reasonable and abundant market 

 can be considered as no trifling object, when compared 

 with the extravagant prices and scanty accommodations of 

 many of our remote watering places. 



X. On the Blight or Mildew of JJlieat*. 



XSuT the most remarkable effect of the seasons of the pre- 

 sent year (ISOO) is that of wheal being, in particular 

 situations, injured by blight or mildew — in a dry summer. 

 In this district (the Vale of Exeter) many fine looking 

 crops were, in a manner, cut off by this malady : the straw 

 becoming black as soot, and the grain shrivelled and 

 light. In one instance which T particularly attended to, it 

 was barely worth the labour of thrashing out ; even at the 

 present prices ! owing, however, in some considerable de- 

 gree, I apprehend, to the imprudence of the grower, who 

 suffered it to stand to ripen after the blight had seized it j 

 while a more judicious manager in this quarter of the 

 county f, by cutting his wheat as soon as he perceived it 

 to be struck with the disease, preserved it, he believes, 

 from material injury. This precaution, however, it is very 

 probable, ninety-nine growers in a hundred did not take ; 

 and the country may have lost, in the most alarming hour 

 of scarcity, some hundred thousand quarters of wheat by 

 this one defect in English a2;riculture| ! 



1804. A similar, but more universal effect took place this 

 summer, which has likewise been characterized by dryness, 

 at least in those parts of the island in which my observa- 

 tions have been made. 



On my return from South Wales to London, earlv in this 

 September, wheat crops evidently appeared, by the dark 



• From Mr. T/IarshaU's new edition of the Rural Economy of the IVvst of 

 Englard. 



I Mr. Smith,' of Axminster. 



\ See the Rural Economy of Gloucestershire, for remarks on this ira« 

 portant point of management. 



hue 



