THE HARVEST.
IT is a pity that such glorious weather as we have enjoyed this summer should do any harm; but the 'drought, which lasted with few interruptions, and with none worth mentioning in some parts of England, from. the end of March till the middle of June, returning in. July, proved too severe for all crops but wheat and.. potatoes, so that the harvest now being gathered in is a. meagre one on the whole in the greater portion of the country. As in 1893 and 1895, the Northern counties of England and Ireland, and almost the whole of Scotland,. were favoured with more rain during the trying period. than fell in the South, causing great variations in the crops. But the difference was not as distinctly marked as it was in the two earlier dry seasons, local storms having been distributed capriciously, as shown by the fact that Lincolnshire, Norfolk, and Kent were effectively helped by rain at a time when none worth. notice had fallen in the South or West of England generally. Similarly, some of the Northern and North. Western counties failed to receive an equal share of the rain which fell in the rest of the Northern half of the country. Scotland, on the other hand, has been even more fortunate than in the two earlier seasons of drought, and has now in sight one of the best all-round havests produced in that country for many years, every crop being good or fair. Ireland, though not up to the Northern division of Great Britain in the general harvest outlook, has comparatively little to complain of now that the root crops have been refreshed by rain, except that the hay crop proved light in the greater part of that country.
Wheat, which is the great crop of the year, was sown under very favourable conditions last autumn, and flourished throughout the mild and dry winter. Where thick enough on the ground and well established in root growth, this crop withstands almost any degree of drought to which we are liable in the United Kingdom, and although on some soils it has suffered from premature ripening, it is estimated above average in nearly every county. The straw is somewhat short, as a rule ; but the crop was generally thick on the ground, and has seldom suffered less injury from storms or insect or fungoid pests. 'The ears are well filled, and the grain is heavy and of good quality. The yield is estimated by the best authorities at about thirty-two bushels an acre, or nearly three bushels above the last ten years' average. For sowing barley February was an exceptionally favour- able month ; but, unfortunately, most farmers were not ready or willing to sow much of the crop so early. March is their customary time for sowing, and a great deal of the work was left over for that month, which proved too wet for field operations. Consequently, the greater portion of the barley crop was not sown until April, when the drought commenced, and such corn had no chance of growing to perfect maturity. The result is that the barley crop is below the mark in all but a few Northern counties of England, though above that standard in Scotland, if not in Ireland also. Oats require more moisture than barley, and accordingly suffered more from the drought, so that they are more or less deficient in every English county, very light in most districts, and somewhat below average in Scotland and Ireland. The pulse crops vary greatly, but are deficient on the whole. Hay proved one of the lightest of crops in nearly the whole of England and in the South of Ireland, while excellent in Scotland. Potatoes promise to be very abundant in all divisions of the Kingdom, as they were last year. Roots failed to plant to a great extent when first sown, and the acreage of marigolds is exceptionally small, while it is doubtful whether repeated sowings of swedes have insured growth on the usual area devoted to that crop. Both crops have been greatly improved by the recent rains, but can hardly produce enough for the keep of live-stock during a prolonged winter, as the hay- stacks are small. Farmers have been busy lately in sowing white turnips and other forage crops, to come in for con- sumption after marigolds and swedes have been finished, and before the grass can be expected to grow in the pastures next spring. The fate of the hop crop is still uncertain ; but a fair yield will probably be obtained if fine weather continues.
The recent change to unsettled and comparatively cold weather did not suit corn-growers, beneficial though the rain was to roots and to the second growths of grasses and clover. In the early districts the greater part of the corn has been safely garnered ; but in the North of England, Scotland, and Ireland comparatively little has been carted. Therefore, wet weather would be a serious mis- fortune, and now that the forage crops have been amply refreshed, we must hope for another settled period of the brilliant sunshine, of which we have enjoyed so great a share duringthe last four months. The financial results of the har- vest will be small at the best, and they will be almost ruinous if wet weather spoils the quality or condition of the grain. Prices are extremely low, even for the best of corn, at the present time, last week's average for eight bushels of wheat, weighing 480 lb., having been only 23s. 6d., or between a halfpenny and three-farthings a pound. Although there will be an extra yield, the crop at such a price will hardly pay expenses, and, indeed, the return from the grain alone cannot cover them, unless where the produc- tion is a good deal over the average. If this amounts to thirty-two bushels an acre, the return at the rate named above will be no more than £4 14s.,—not much of a sum to cover rent, rates, taxes, wages, cost of horse- keep, depreciation of working-plant, manure, and trades- men's bills, to say nothing of the living of the farmer and his family. It is true that there is the straw, which often comes to as much as the grain nowadays ; but many farmers are prohibited by their covenants from selling straw, and if all sold it, that commodity would soon be a drug in the market. The wheat harvest is believed to be the best produced since 1868, also a year of prolonged drought and heat. But what a difference the fall in prices which has occurred since that year will make to the farmers' receipts for the grain ! It will not do to take the yearly average of 1868—no less than 63s. 9d. per quarter—as indicative of the receipts from the crop of that year. The weekly average in May touched 74s. 7d. a quarter, but fell considerably before harvest. Still, for two or three months afterwards the price was between 50s. and 60s., and farmers sold a large portion of their wheat at such rates, while the average for the whole year 1869, when the remainder of the crop was disposed of, was 48s. 2d., or more than double the current price. The present value of barley is no criterion, as there is no malting grain in the market, except perhaps a very little of the new crop, but throughout the last malting season the weekly average price was only from 21s. to 25s. 8d. a quarter, and last week it was no more than 19s. 5d., whereas the yearly average was 43s. in 1868 and 39s. 5d. in the following year. Unless prices rise very much above the present level, it is clear that the small crop of barley will give but a miserable return to growers. As to oats, the yield of which will be even more short of the standard than that of barley, the average price stands at 14s. 9d. a quarter, as compared with 26s. ld. in 1868 and 26s. in 1869. These figures show how great was the misrepre- sentation of certain speakers in the debate on the Agri- cultural Land Rating Bill who declared that the depres- sion in agriculture was simply one of wheat. The case of the farmers is all the worse from the shortness of feed, which has greatly reduced the value of their live-stock. The recent rains will help them in this respect in relation to autumn, winter, and early spring keep alike ; but we fear that the results of the harvest in all its branches will do nothing to lift the cloud of depression which has so long hung over our most important national industry.
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