248 
The Fast Agricultural Year, 
below the promise of the harvest-field. Accordingly, of the 
returns to the ' Agricultural Gazette,' given in the midst of har- 
vest-time, more than three-fourths of the reports of the wheat- 
crop, and three-fifths of those of the barley-crop, stated it to 
be below an average. The oat-crop, indeed, was the only fair 
corn-crop of the year. Mr. Lawes' account of his experience at 
Rothamsted gave an even more disastrous picture of the corn 
produce of the country ; and in the ' Times ' of March 3, Mr. 
T. C. Scott has pointed out that the quantity of home-grown, 
wheat reported as delivered at market during the first six months 
since last harvest has been only 3,276,000 quarters as compared 
with 5,873,000 quarters during the corresponding period of 
1878-9. "The quality indeed of the home-produce has been 
so exceptionally inferior, that much of it has been given to live- 
stock, and has not therefore appeared in those returns " this year„ 
To appreciate with accuracy the position of the English farmer 
generally, however, we must, to losses in the flock and to 
diminished receipts in the corn-market, add the very dirty con- 
dition of much of the arable land ; and, above all, the great loss 
of capital due to a succession of bad seasons. It is certain that 
fallows never were fouler than they were last autumn ; and flock 
and stock and farm capital were never lower than the seasons 
described by Mr. Symons have left them. No wonder that one 
of my correspondents in Lancashire adds to his report, — 
" Farmers have at length been taught when valuing the rent they 
can afford to give, to take into their consideration what effect 
a succession of bad seasons may have upon the occupation." 
A large number of reports have reached me from many Eng- 
lish and Scotch counties for which I have not been able to find 
room. They tell the same story as those already quoted. Mr. 
W. Smith, of West Drums, Forfarshire, after relating his experi- 
ence, says : — 
" This is a gloomy enough picture, but I am very sure it is not overdrawn.. 
I have farmed a pretty large extent of arable and pasture land since 1836, 
and I have a registry of farm operations ever since I put my hand to the 
work. I have recorded no such season as the present in all that time. The 
lessons such seasons teach are really few. We cannot contend with 
Nature in such a mood. Had the calamity been confined to one year it 
might have been got over, but after a succession of bad seasons this one will, 
in my opinion, be the ruin of thousands of even our comparatively well-to-do 
men. It is believed that nothing has been known like it since 1816, which 
our fathers spoke of as next to 1799 and 1800, as being the most fatal year 
in farming on record." 
This inability to furnish lessons is a consequence of the over- 
whelming degree of the general failure. Applying to Mr. C. 
Randell, of Evesham, for instance, for any experience he might 
have, in which drained and undrained land could this year he 
