242 
The Past Agricultural Year. 
portion of tlie wlicnt in good condition; but our barley was injured by the- 
excessive rains that followed, to the extent of from 10s. to 20s. per quarter. 
The wheat that was left was much sprouted, and damaged from 3s. to 8s. per 
quarter. Some of this loss might have been avoided by an earlier commence- 
ment of harvest, and by more care in setting \ip the wheat after the reaper, the 
.sheaves requiring to be set up straight and firm, and not too many in a shock : 
ten are sufiicient, or even fewer, if placed in a circular form to represent a cone. 
After the completion of the harvest of 1878 we had a brief interval of fine 
weather, which enabled us to do a little in the way of autumn tillage; but a 
rainy season again set in, continuing more or less till the month of December, 
when snow and frost visited us. We succeeded in getting about three-fourths 
of the autumn-wheat sown, and with much difficulty got the mangold off the 
ground and secured. This crop was good ; the swedes scarcely an average. 
There was no chance to secure or store any of the latter ; numbers of acres 
entirely destroyed by the frost, were cut Tip in the spring and ploughed into 
the land for barley, resulting in a laid crop. This manuring proved more 
potent than a fair dressing of nitrate of soda and superphosphate. 
Wheats on wet and undrained land were thinly planted, and altogether a 
very indifferent crop ; and even ujMii dry sound soils, both spring and autumn- 
sown, bulky and apparently good, proved a disappointment, the ears being 
more blighted and defective than we had ever seen them, and the yield 
generally bad. What otherwise could be expected from the extraordinary wet 
season the}'' experienced ? Barley on the strong and wet lands was a miserable 
failure ; but on well-farmed porous soils not to be complained of. The same 
may be said of oats. Winter beans were in this district entirely destroyed by 
the frost. The land was well-manured in the early spring and resown with 
spring beans and peas. The former promised a fine crop; the latter a very 
indifferent one. 
Both mangold and swedes were a good jilant, at least upon all light or 
mixed soils, but filthy in the extreme. It was impossible to destroy the weeds, 
especially the chickwccd, which grows as fast as it is cut. Potatoes, both 
early and late and of all kinds, were universally diseased. 
I have farmed for a period of forty years and never remember a season so 
fraught with disaster, nor one likely to be attended with such serious con- 
sequences to the English farmer. 
W. CUBITT. 
Hampshire. — Nortlibrook, Miclieldever. 
The drop of lambs was an average one, but there was a large number of 
deaths among the young ewes. Horses and cattle kept in good health, and 
the pigs in very good health. After clover the wheat looked very thin in the 
early spring, but improved greatly afterwards. On the mangold ground the 
wheat appeared to be little affected by the cold winter, but it did not continue 
to do so well afterwards. After turnips, fed off by the sheep, the wheat always 
promised fairly. Rivett wheat after wheat looked bad all along; it was sown 
late and was hardly uj) when the frost began. The varieties grown are 
Mixed lled-and- White, liromwich. Golden Drop, Square Head, Club Eed, and 
Rivett. With exception of the Rivett, as noticed above, no particular sort 
appears to have suffered more than another. My impression from observation 
is, that the late frosts and snows and cold weather did more damage to the 
wheat than the severe weather of the winter. 
Tlie winter frosts made a splendid seed-bed for the barley and oats, and the 
dry weather of March (when the rainfall here was only "84: in.) was very 
useful for cleaning the land. The soil here being light, on chalk, there is no 
