THE HARVEST.
SINCE writing on Harvest prospects, six weeks ago, the vicissitudes of a somewhat extraordinary season have led to great changes in the appearance of the crops, now rapidly falling before the scythe and the reaping machine over the greater portion of the country. For the greater part of the interval that has elapsed the temperature has been abnormally low for the time of year ; a considerable quantity of rain in- cluding some heavy downpours, has fallen ; and there has been a great lack of sunshine. The effect of such weather upon the wheat crop especially has been very injurious. At the period referred to, although the crop was generally rather thin and all very short in the straw, the ears were of a goodly size, and looked like filling well. The wet and cold weather of the latter half of July, however, caused rust to prevail extensively, and prevented the full fructification of the crop. Red maggot and other injurious grubs and insects, too, have caused more or less barrenness; • and the result of fungoid and insect injury combined is that the ears
are badly filled, a large proportion of the grain is under-sized, and the quality is not at all satisfactory. The straw has grown to its usual length, and yet, where the crop is cut, the shocks are further apart than they were expected to be, the wheat being thinner on the ground than was supposed from an off- hand inspection while it was standing. Instead of a crop nearly up to average, then, as was fairly to be expected in the middle of July, a yield of from ten to twenty per cent, below average is all that the best judges expect. This depreciation in the crop has been to some extent caused by the lodging of the comparatively few heavy pieces of wheat, especially in the Midlands and other parts of the country where heavy storms of rain have been most common. Out of several hundreds of reports upon the crop now before us, we find that 10 per cent, only represent it as over average, 24 per cent. average, and 66 per cent, under average. As some of the reports were written a fortnight ago, when the depreciation was not sufficiently noticeable, we may take these per centages to be rather too favourable than otherwise. As the acreage of the wheat crop—fortunately for the farmers—is a short one, 13 per cent, below that of last year, the English yield will be one of the smallest on record.
We are glad to be able to report more favourably upon the other cereals. It is true that barley has not come up to its great early promise, chiefly because the best crops are all badly laid. There is a full crop of straw ; but weight and quality have been lost, to a considerable extent. With such a defi- ciency of sunshine as we have had this summer, it has been impossible for any of the cereals to mature and ripen in a normal manner, and a preponderance of thin and coarse grain is inevitable. Still, the reports before us are about 35 per cent, over average, 41 per cent. average, and 24 per cent. under average ; quantity alone being referred to. The oat crop has improved as materially as the other cereals have deteriorated, the rainy weather having supplied it with the moisture for which it was languishing, after the drought which prevailed from the middle of June to the middle of July. Therefore, instead of being the decidedly short crop which its appearance six weeks ago indicated, it has now come up abreast of barley, the per-centages of the reports being 35 above average, 93 average, and 22 below average.
The pulse crops are decidedly satisfactory, and the bean crop may be pronounced the best of the season, while peas come up to average. In fact, for peas, the per-centage of the estimates represent an exact average, and for beans there are 40 above against 20 below, with 40 average. The root crops, again, are excellent, Swedish turnips beieg particularly luxuriant. Mangolds are thin in places, but generally large for the present stage of growth, and white turnips are nearly as good as swedes. In short, the root crop, which is now out of danger of serious damage, is one of the most abundant of recent years. Potatoes have looked remarkably well all through the season, having been sown in a rare abundance of dry moulds. Disease has appeared in many parts of the country, as it always does more or less; but after so moist a time as we have had recently, the wonder is that the parasite has not shown itself far more extensively. If we should be favoured with dry weather for another month, there can be no doubt as to a very heavy crop of tubers being reilised. The hay crop, which was very light in the early districts, has bulked up fairly as the later cuttings have been secured, but on the whole is still a small crop. The quality has been injured by rain to some extent, but not more than is usually the case with a crop that is being harvested in one place or another during the whole of the summer.
Recent reports from the hop districts detracted somewhat from the exuberantly sanguine expectations previously entertained ; but the hot and sunny weather of the past ten days has caused a
great improvement. There has never been a more luxuriant
growth of bine ; but until hops are actually fit for gathering, no one can tell, even approximately, what the yield will be.
The crop is not out of danger yet ; but it soon will be, and the chances are greatly in favour of one of the best yields on record.
In Scotland, Harvest prospects are about on a par with those of England, except that turnips are not so good ; while in Ireland they were better, on the whole, until discounted by heavy storms of rain quite recently. In European countries, and in the United States, the wheat crop seems to be more or
less deficient ; but other farm produce is as generally abund- ant. The world's stock of wheat is at present sufficient to prevent any anxiety as to an abundant supply for• the coming winter, however deficient the new crop may
be,—a fact that is obvious from the lowness of market prices. A great deal of corn has been already cut in the southern and eastern counties of England, and some has been safely stacked or housed. The weather day by day is watched with the greatest anxiety, and although the South of England has been greatly favoured for most of the time since harvest commenced, Ireland, Scotland, and the North of England have been visited by heavy rains, which have done much damage. We have at least the certainty of a finer harvest than that of last year, as about half the work is done in the early dis- tricts ; and the hot weather, which farmers, at least, may be said to have enjoyed, has ripened the crops so rapidly, that the scythe and the reaping machine are now at work gener- ally throughout the greater part of England, and in alf but the backward districts of the rest of the kingdom. On the whole, then, agricultural prospects are decidedly cheering ; and if the harvest is not quite so golden as it promised to be when we last wrote about it, there can be no doubt that the produce of our fields is more abundant than it has been for many years. We might feel called upon to except last year from this com- parison, if it had not been for the wet harvest, which destroyed an excellent prospect. The crop returns recently published in the agricultural papers represent the harvest as scarcely up to that of last year ; but it is explained that last, year's reports, given just when the corn was ready to be cut, were heavily discounted when results were reckoned up. There is good reason to hope that no such falling-off will have to be recorded in the present season, but that the generally fine crops, wheat being the only exception, will be secured in fine condition. In that event, although prices are low, our long-tried farmers may be fortunate enough to retrieve some of their past losses, and to prosecute their useful enterprise with renewed faith and courage.
Previous page
