Report  on  Wheat-Mildew. 
635 
more  costly,  and  potentially  much  more  valuable,  than  a crop 
of  wheat  ; but  the  growers  of  these  crops  have  generally  some 
compensation  for  their  losses ; occasionally  they  make  large 
profits,  and  they  are  therefore  better  able  to  bear  their  loss, 
and  with  them  the  part  is  often  greater  than  the  whole,  for 
not  unfrequently  a deficient  crop  realises  more  money  than  a 
full  crop  would  have  done,  because  the  price  has  risen  in  con- 
sequence of  the  short  crop  ; but  the  grower  of  wheat  has  no 
handsome  profits  to  fall  back  upon,  and  the  foreign  supply 
prevents  that  advance  in  prices  which  might  in  some  degree 
make  up  for  a diminished  yield.  The  yield  of  his  crop  may  be 
reduced  by  75  per  cent,  by  mildew,  and  what  remains  is  scarcely 
saleable. 
Widely  spread  as  this  disease  is,  and  great  as  is  the  damage 
done  by  it,  there  would  seem  to  be  many  farmers  who  have 
never  suffered  serious  injury  from  it,  and  some  who  do  not  even 
know  what  it  is.  It  may  desirable,  therefore,  to  give  some  idea 
of  what  a mildew  year  means  in  the  East  of  England. 
In  1881  nearly  all  the  white-corn  crops  in  the  low  lands 
of  Cambs,  Hunts,  Lincoln,  Norfolk,  and  Suffolk,  were  more  or 
less  mildewed.  Many  crops  of  wheat  were  almost  entirely 
destroyed  ; the  oats  were  greatly  diminished  in  yield  and  quality  ; 
and  in  some  cases  the  barley  was  considerably  injured.  The 
district  most  severely  injured  may  be  defined  roughly  by  the 
following  boundary : From  Cambridge,  N.E.,  to  Mildenhall ; 
thence  N.  to  Stoke  Ferry ; thence  W.  by  Downham  Market  to 
Wisbech;  thence  N.W.  to  Spalding;  thence  S.  by  Peterboro’ to 
Huntingdon,  and  S.E.  to  Cambridge  again.  This  area  com- 
prises at  least  600,000  acres  of  land,  a large  proportion  of  which 
is  under  the  plough,  and  wheat  is  the  staple  crop.  Probably 
25  per  cent,  of  the  total  area,  or  150,000  acres  of  wheat,  are 
harvested  every  year  in  the  district  described.  In  the  middle 
of  the  month  of  July  1881  there  was  on  all  the  best  wheat- 
lands  of  this  district  the  promise  of  a fine  crop,  which  seemed, 
as  it  were,  within  the  grasp  of  the  farmer.  Then  an  attack 
of  mildew  came,  and  the  consequence  was  that  the  crop  of 
that  year  was  one  of  the  most  wretched  ever  gathered.  In 
a large  parish  adjoining  that  in  which  I live,  one  which  is 
noted  for  its  fertility,  the  wheat-crops  were  described  to  me 
by  an  excellent  judge  and  experienced  farmer  as  being  in 
July  as  good  as  anything  he  had  ever  seen.  At  harvest  many 
of  the  best  of  those  crops,  which  would  under  more  favourable 
circumstances  have  yielded  from  40  to  48  bushels  to  the  acre, 
produced  only  5 sacks,  or  20  bushels  ; and  some  of  the  very 
best  yielded  only  12  bushels  of  wheat,  which  weighed  only 
2 t 2 
