70 
JOURNAL  OF  HORTICULTURE  AND  COTTAGE  GARDENER. 
July  19,  1900 
and  they  enjoy  the  benefits  of  protection,  yet  with  that  protection  the 
yield  of  their  cereals  falls  short  of  ours  by  from  30  to  40  per  cent.  As 
we  have  before  said,  our  people  consume  per  head  much  more  meat  than 
Belgians,  French,  or  Germans,  but  they  beat  us  as  bread  and  Potato 
eaters.  Not  all  the  Potatoes  used  in  Belgium  and  Germany  are 
consumed  as  a  vegetable,  but  are  used  in  the  manufacture  of  starch 
and  wretched  spirits. 
We  have  found  some  figures  (reliable  ones)  which  go  to  prove  that 
after  all  we  produce  more  food,  acre  for  acre,  from  our  arable  land  than 
any  of  our  much  vaunted  neig  ibjurs.  It  has  been  reckoned  that  we 
each  require  884  lbs,  bread  stuff  per  annum.  Now  a  very  pertinent 
question  arises.  How  many  acres  are  required  to  supply  us  with  these 
884  lbs.  ?  These  are  the  figures  : — 
United  Kingdom 
Belgium 
Germany 
France 
.580  acres  per  1000  persons 
656 
870 
1034 
» 
)) 
» 
)) 
)» 
Where  then  does  the  better  cultivation  come  in  ?  We  fail  to 
see  where  we  are  bested.  Our  large  areas  of  plough  can  be  worked 
more  economically  and  more  productively  than  the  small  plots, 
however  carefully  tilled.  It  is  considered  by  some  authorities  that 
our  system  is  more  wasteful  than  that  of  the  foreigner,  because  we 
have  something  less  than  50  per  cent,  of  land  under  plough,  as  against 
last  week  are  now  almost  stripped.  Potatoes  have  spread  out  wonder¬ 
fully,  and  are  now  in  full  flower,  the  ridges  being  quite  invisible.  All 
kinds  pf  root  crops  are  growing  fast.  Turnips  sown  nineteen  days  were 
horse-hoed  yesterday,  and  are  being  hoed  and  singled  to-day.  Is  that 
quick  enough  ? 
A  great  quantity  of  Clover  and  hay  has  been  lying  in  swath,  waiting 
for  fine  weather;  now  this  has  come  haymaking  is  employing  nearly  all 
hands.  The  rain  has  not  damaged  it  much,  and  the  crop  is  being  got  in 
fair  order,  but  not  perhaps  quite  so  good  as  last  year.  The  bulk  is 
disappointing,  particularly  of  Clover,  and  the  deficiency  will  be  the 
more  felt  as  stocks  of  old  hay  are  rather  low.  Perhaps  second  crops 
may  be  secured  if  weather  conditions  should  be  favourable. 
In  connection  with  second  crops  there  is  a  strong  belief  amongst 
country  folk  that  these  are  not  so  good  as  they  used  to  bo,  and  they 
lay  the  blame  upon  mowing  machines,  which  nip  off  and  bruise  the 
stems  instead  of  making  a  clean  cut  as  a  scythe  does.  There  may  be 
considerable  truth  in  this  ;  all  the  fault,  however,  does  not  lie  with  the 
reaper,  but  partly  upon  the  man  who  sharpens  the  knives,  for  in  too 
many  cases  he  is  satisfied  with  getting  the  work  done  somehow,  only 
just  reducing  the  dullness  of  the  cutting  sections  sufficiently  to  muddle 
along,  and  forgetting  that  sharp  knives  make  easier  as  well  as  better 
work.  The  sharpening  of  reaper  knives  should  be  made  as  easy  an 
operation  as  possible,  and  every  machine  shoffld  be  accompanied  by  a 
small  treadle  whetstone  shaped  for  reaper  sections. 
Reapers  which  have  been  thoroughly  cleaned  and  oiled  before  being 
put  away  in  a  clean  place  come  out  almost  ready  for  work,  and,  as  a 
blacksmith  remarked  the  other  day,  “  Most  machines  take  a  day  to 
look  them  over  before  you  can  find  what  is  matter  with  them ;  but 
Mr.  B.’s  machine  never  wants  much  doing  at  her,  because  he  cleans  her 
well  after  harvest  and  covers  her  up  with  straw  in  the  barn.” 
the  78  per  cent,  arable  of  Belgium,  and  the  75  per  cent,  of  France* 
Nevertheless,  we  find  that  with  our  large  percentage  of  permanent 
pasture  we  still  manage  to  have  as  much  land  under  the  plough  as  the 
Frenchman,  one  third  more  than  the  German,  and  almost  double  as 
much  as  the  Belgian. 
In  all  agricultural  papers  we  see  from  time  to  time,  and  of  late 
very  frequently,  discussions  as  to  the  value  of  our  root  crops.  Without 
roots  certainly  we  could  not  maintain  our  present  head  of  sheep,  and 
we  have  rather  looked  to  them  as  our  sheet  anchor  since  the  days  of 
cheap  corn  set  in.  We  excel  in  our  root  crops,  raising  as  we  do 
20  tons  as  against  Belgium’s  9^  and  the  paltry  3  tons  of  France. 
We  are  a  meat-eating  nation,  and  wo  therefore  must  provide  food  for 
the  meat  when  living  to  consume.  And  we  fancy  that  all  the  good 
tillage  left  by  the  sheep  has  a  good  deal  to  answer  for  in  our  finer  and 
heavier  crops  of  corn  (i.e.,  Barley  and  Oats).  Nothing  has  yet 
been  found  that  beats  the  sheep  as  a  manure  maker;  he  gives  back 
to  the  land  all  he  takes  out  of  it.  Then  again,  as  regards  hay  or 
other  fodder,  we  are  far  and  away  before  our  neighbours,  and  we  do 
all  this  without  lessening  our  gr  in-producing  areas. 
It  is  never  quite  fair  to  compare  different  countries;  there  are  so 
many  factors  ve  cannot  take  into  account.  English  asriculturists 
are  not  in  a  flourishing  condition  at  present,  but  we  doubt  whether 
we  should  be  bettered,  if  we  adopted  many  of  the  Continental 
methods.  We  should  want  a  change  of  population  first,  and,  as  we 
said  before,  the  English  peasantry  would  take  badly  to  the  longer 
hours  and  smaller  wages  and  poorer  food  which  would  be  part  of  the 
rdgime,  and  our  whole  land  system  would  stand  in  need  of  alteration. 
Then  we  should  have  to  change  the  climatic  influences,  and  when  we 
got  all  done  (supposing  it  were  possible),  who  would  be  a  penny  the 
better?  Not  the  farme',  not  the  consumer,  and  not  the  agitator. 
If  we  want  to  attain  to  a  state  of  greater  productiveness — and  that 
we  mav  do  so  we  fully  think— it  will  be  by  applied  science.  There  is 
no  doubt  that  we  owe  much  in  the  past  to  the  patient  researches  of 
our  scientific  men  ;  th'  ir  discoveries  they  jrlace  freely  at  our  disposal, 
and  many  of  them  think  that  as  yet  they  are  only  beginning  to  learn 
some  of  the  secrets  Nature  has  locked  in  her  bosom. 
Work  on  tlje  Home  Farm. 
The  “Times”  has  published  the  result  of  its  first  inquiry  into  the 
state  of  British  farm  crops.  The  result,  compared  with  that  of  last 
yea,r,  shows  Wheat  to  be  worse,  but  Barley  better,  and  Oats  much  better. 
This  does  not  necessarily  mean  that  Wheat  is  a  bad  crop,  or  that  the 
other  two  are  good  ones.  Wheat,  we  imagine,  will  turn  out  to  be  about 
an  average.  Barley,  which  made  a  bad  start,  has  recovered,  the  cool, 
showery  weather  having  given  ifc  time  to  do  so ;  the  cool  weather  has 
also  specially  suited  Oafs,  and  as  far  as  our  own  knowledge  reaches, 
these  will  both  be  fair  average  crops  ;  and  the  “  Times  ”  report  appears 
to  denote  a  similar  state  of  things  throughout  the  country.  May  there 
be  good  weather  wherein  to  harvest  them  ! 
We  are  at  any  rate  at  last  having  a  taste  of  real  summer  weather — 
blazing  hot  days  and  warm  nights.  The  men  from  working  fully  clothed 
Soldiers  In  the  Harvest  rield. — The  serious  dearth  of  iarm 
labour  in  Dorset,  which  promises  to  be  acute  this  harvest  time,  is  to  be 
met  in  a  novel  way.  The  officer  commanding  the  depot  at  Dorchester 
has  issued  a  public  announcement  that  he  will  be  prepared  to  give 
favourable  consideration  to  applications  for  soldiers  to  help  in  the 
harvest.  As  many  of  the  men  at  the  depot  have  been  trained  in  field 
work  they  will  probably  respond  readily  to  the  appeal  for  their 
temporary  assistance  in  a  real  emergency. 
The  Irrepressible  Charlock. — One  of  the  most  persistent  farm 
weeds  is  the  wild  Mustard  or  Charlock.  A  Wheat  field  just  outside  my 
window  is  covered  from  end  to  end  with  this  Charlock  in  full  bloom. 
The  Charlock  was  rightly  looked  on  by  the  agricultural  writers  of  old 
as  a  nuisance,  and  it  seems  to  have  been  very  abundant  then.  In  his 
work  “  Rural  Economy  of  the  Southern  Counties,”  Marshall  says  of 
the  weed  in  the  Isle  of  Wight : — “  The  Turnip  crop  is  shamefully 
managed  in  this  island;  not  1  acre  often  appears  to  have  been  hoed. 
To-day  I  saw  a  waggonload  of  Chatlock  an  acre,  where  Turnips  were 
doubtless  intended.”  At  the  beginning  of  September  I  have  some¬ 
times  been  inclined  to  bless  Charlock,  when  I  have  been  walking  up 
and  shooting  partridge.  It  sometimes  affords  a  little  “  lay  ”  for  the 
birds,  where  without  it  there  would  be  practically  none  at  all. 
The  Russian  Harvest. — It  is  satisfactory  to  be  able  to  state 
that  much  of  the  widespread  anxiety  which  for  many  weeks  past  has 
grievously  harassed  the  peasantry  of  South  and  South-Western  Russia 
has  during  the  last  few  days  been  happily  relieved  by  copious  rainfalls 
over  the  greater  part  of  the  vast  grain-producing  regions  in  those 
provinces.  Under  the  improved  prospects,  however,  and  even  with  the 
most  favourable  conditions  for  harvesting  operations,  it  is  not  anti¬ 
cipated  that  the  general  yield  will  at  the  best  be  more  than  what  is 
usually  described  as  a  “middling”  or  “low  middling”  crop.  The 
reports  from  the  Volga  provinces  are  not  very  cheerful,  but  it  is 
expected  that  there  will  at  all  events  be  no  recurrence  this  year  of 
the  calamitous  shortage  of  last  season.  In  Bessarabia  the  outlook  has 
been  rendered  fairly  good  by  timely  rains,  but  the  unfortunate 
peasantry  of  that  province  are  still  in  a  lamentably  distressful  condition 
from  the  effects  of  the  recent  famine.  All  their  horses  and  draught 
oxen  have  either  been  sold  at  ruinously  low  prices,  or  have  perished  for 
want  of  fodder. —  ('*  Standard.”) 
The  ilmerlcan  Wheat  Crop. — The  United  States,  like  this 
country,  have  suffered  from  drought  in  May ;  and,  unlike  the  circum¬ 
stances  here,  the  Wheat  crop  has  been  considerably  injured  by  the  lack 
of  rain,  chiefly  the  large  spring  division.  The  report  of  the  Depart¬ 
ment  of  Agriculture  gives  the  estimated  average  condition  of  each 
division  for  June  1st,  but  reports  of  injury  from  drought  and  insects 
have  come  in  since,  so  that  the  official  estimates  may  be  regarded  as 
higher  than  they  would  be  if  the  reports  upon  which  they  are  based 
were  collected  afresh  now.  The  condition  of  winter  Wheat  is  put  at 
82  7  per  cent,  of  a  full  crop  condition,  or  6  2  points  lower  than  it  was 
for  May  1st,  but  15'4  per  cent,  higher  than  it  was  a  year  ago.  The 
area,  after  the  ploughing-up  of  a  large  expanse,  is  reckoned  to  be 
24,908,000  acres,  or  about  a  million  acres  less  than  the  extent  harvested 
last  year.  The  area  of  the  spring  Wheat  crop  is  returned  at  17,273.000 
acres,  or  667,000  acres  less  than  that  of  last  year,  and  the  condition  at 
S7‘3,  or  4T  lower  than  it  was  a  year  ago.  Yet  we  find  estimators 
predicting  a  total  Wheat  crop  up  to  620,000,000  bushels,  though  one 
reckoning  is  as  low  as  547,000,000  bushels. 
