on the Blight in Corn. 32o 



\hc air be loaded as it were with this animated dust, ready, 

 whenever a gentle breeze, aceonipanied with huiriidity> 

 shall give the signal, to intrude itself into the pores of 

 thou>ands of acres of corn ! Providence, however, careful 

 of the creatures it has created, has benevolently provided 

 against the too extensive multiplication of any species of 

 being : was it otherwise, the minute plants and animals^ 

 enemies aoainst which man has the fewest mean? of de- 

 fence, would increase to an inordinate extent : this, how- 

 ever, can in no case happen, unless n)any predisposing 

 causes afford their combined assistance. But for this wise 

 and beneficent provision, the plague of slugs, the plague of 

 mice, the plagues of grubs, wire-worms, chafers, and 

 nianv other creatures whose power of niuUiplying is count- 

 less as the sands of the sea, would, long before this time;^ 

 liavc driven mankind, and all the larger animals, from the 

 face of the eartli. 



Though all old persons who have concerned themselves 

 in agriculture remember the blight in corn many years, yet 

 some have supposed that of late years it has materially in- 

 creased ; this however does not seem to be the case. Tull, 

 in his Horsehoeing Husbandry, p. 74, tells us, that the 

 year 17-5 " was a year of blight the like of which was 

 never before heard of, and which he hopes may never 

 happen again ;" yet the average price of wheat in the year 

 172G, when tlic harvest of 17t!5 was at market, was only 

 36?. 4d. and the average of the five years of which it makes 

 the first, 37^-. id. — 1797 was also a year of great blight; 

 the price of wheat in 1 798 w as 49.V. id. and the average of 

 the live years, from 1795 to 1791), (33j)'. 5t/.* 



The climate of the Britisli Isles is not the only one that 

 is liable to the Ijligiit in corn ; it happens occasionally in 

 every part of Europe, and proljably in all countries where 

 corn is grown. Italy is very subject to it, and the last har- 

 vest of Sicilv has been materially hurt by it. Specimens 

 received from the colony of New South Wales show that 



* The scarcity of the year 1801 was in part occasioned by a mildew vhicli 

 in inaiiv places attacked the plants of wheat on the south-east side oi'ly, bu: it 

 was principallv owing to the very wet harvest of 1800. The doliciency of 

 wheat at that harvest wajt found, on a very accurate calculation, sjmcwhat to 

 exceed one-fourth ; but whtat was not the only jjrain that faikd ; all otliers, 

 artd potatoes also, were materially deficient. Thii year thewlic.it is prob:ibly 

 soDiewhat more diimaijed than it was in lKO(),and barley somtwh.^t less than 

 an average crop. Kvery ojlier article of agricultural food is abundant, and 

 potatoes one of the largest crops that \va'. been known ; but for these ble?s- 

 ing» on the labour of man, wheat must btfi-i e this time have reached an 

 eiorbilant \>uci.-r'Additiv!ial r.ule i.<f the .-hilkor, 



X i' rouridcrahlc 



