DECEMBER 411 



East Norfolk estate, he had an opportunity of selling a great 

 quantity of wind-felled timber to be used for mining purposes in 

 the North of England. The carriage which he was prepared to 

 pay upon this timber amounted, I understand, to no less a sum 

 than 6,ooo/., but the railway companies concerned declined to 

 transport it at that price, with the result that the business fell 

 through, and the trees are now being disposed of locally for what 

 they will fetch as firewood and fencing. 



I may add that in my own case I made inquiries also as to 

 delivery by water-carriage, but this too proved impracticable. 



This question of transport is one of the gravest that the 

 agriculturist has to face, for here he must compete against the 

 preferential rates granted to foreign produce by the railways. I will 

 quote a single instance. The Rev. J. Valpy, of Elsing, in this 

 county, writing to The Times, states that one of his parishioners 

 receives a hundred apples delivered by rail from California, U.S., 

 at a cost of 3*. But when the same person sent a hundred apples 

 to be delivered in Leicester, by the Midland or Great Northern 

 Railway, he was obliged to pay zs. io^f. that is to say, twopence 

 less than the charge for the carriage of exactly the same quantity 

 of fruit from California. This example speaks for itself. At the 

 same time it would be unjust not to acknowledge with gratitude 

 the offers which are now being made by the Great Eastern Railway 

 to convey small parcels of farm and garden produce to London at 

 greatly reduced rates. 



December 7. For the last few days we have been ploughing 

 and fence trimming on the farm, in weather that, for the time of year, 

 is extraordinarily fine and mild. It appears, indeed, according to a 

 letter to The Times from Mr. G. J. Simmons, that the nights of 

 the 5th and 6th of this month were the warmest recorded in the 

 notes of meteorological observations made during forty years. On 

 the 6th the reading reached 63-9, which is nearly twenty degrees 

 above the average for a December night. This temperature was 

 milder than that of any night during last May, while in July 



