The Stourbridge Observer, Cradley Heath, Halesowen & District Chronicle.
Stourbridge, West Midlands, England, 1881-07-23 00:00:00

THE PROSPECTS OF THE HARVEST.

The Daily News of Tuesday had a leader commenting
upon the weather, and the harvest prospects, from which we
make the following extracts :

"Another week of blazing ininmer weather, such
as this country has, net seen foe years, has greatly im-
peeved the prospects of agriculture. On the pasture
farms there is a cry for rain, and the root crops
everywhere would be glad of a week of wet weather,
but the growers of corn in southern and eastern Eng-
land have not had so favourable a season since 187 G.
The hot weather which has wrung loud pomp:taints
from legislators and othere who ere mewed up in
London is eaactl-, what
the wheat has needed. . . .
. . 3 .
One incidental advantage of the briliiant summer
weather is that the crops are secured quickly, with
less expense than in more changeable seasons, and in
perfect condition. The hay crop has been light, br.t,
probably it was never better in quality. 4 Warwick-
shire farmer illustrates the, advantage 'd a hot season
by reperting that he put twenty acres of grass on
Tuesday laet, and that it was all made into hay and
got into the rickyard in capital condition by Wednes-
day night. The prospects of the harvest may of course
undergo a change. . • . If the brilliant weather last
there will be a good many fields in shock by the
Ist of August, and we have ECO:q nothing like that
for some years pad,. In one of the wheat-growing
dietriets oi Berke and Oxen it was the aim of the
farmers in an early setlsoll to get a rick covered in by
the first Monday in August. If the remaining days
of July are at all alike Monday last and the wool;
which preceded it, this fete will not be difficult of ac-
complishment in the present season. The advantages
of such a season are of course with the corn-growilig
districts. The change in the proportion of arable to
graeing farms of late years has begun to alter the re-
lation of agriculture td the seasons. A hot dry sum-
mer has hitherto been considered favourable on the
whole to the agricultural interest ; but it may almost
be doubted whether it is so now to anything like the
extent it was thirty years ago. The grasirig farmers
are crying out for ipoisture, and are net eampeneated
for the went of feed for their stock by the knowledge
that the cereals are flourishing in the sunshine. The
fact, however, remains, that a good year for wheat and
barley is still regarded as a prosperous one for agricul-
ture, and that a good yield of cereals is what is usually
meant by the term "a good harvest."
Perhaps the most encouragiries sign of the times for
the farmers e i,enceall7 ie the peoof the season has given
.
that we nave entirely escaped from the longest succes7
sion of bad years of which meteorological records speak
or memory and tradition run. If, as is generally be-
lieved, the seasons come in groups, we seem to have
leaped out of a group of cold and wet seasons into
period of warmth and dryness. Wel,Ylay hope theee-
fore that the lean yaa,ra will be succeeded by
fist ones, itlia that, so far as the seasons
are accountable for agricultural depression, it
may now 'begin to mend. It is difficult to
over, estimate the advantages which a good
harvest confers on the country, though we are net
dependent on it for cheap bread. Thanles to Irgo
Trade, our food supply is now drawn from so arge an
area that there is no longer any possibility of famine
even in years as disastrous as 1879. But it makes a
great difference to the farmers whether they have
much wheat or little wheat to sell, and whether the
quality is good or bad now that the price is not deter-
mined by the quantity they grow. Whether
the yield is ecarce or plentiful and the ears are
ripened by hot sun or sodden with wet, our
people have plenty to eat, but it depends
entirely on the harvest whether the farmers are to
have plenty to spend. Every village and country
town in the kingdom feels the effect of a good
harvest. Everything is livelier and hnsier. There is
more meney going among all classes. The railways
have more traffic and more travellers; the shop-
keepers see more customers, and the labourers are
more fully employed. There are fresh orders for the
commercial traveller when he comes round, and great
business houses in London, Manchester' Leeds, or
Birmingham report a lively demand for their goods.
The movement like the ripple made by _Peope's
pebble in the pea,ceful lake spreads hi widen-
ing circles 0' round. From the tradesmen
in the towns and villages it spreads to the whole-
sale houses, thence to the manufacturers, and so
on to the workman, to the producer of raw material,
and back to the farmer again. A flourishing agricul-
ture makes a flourishing home trade, and a brisk home
trade quickens the demand for aeripialtural products in
the town; and prices are forced up by the increased
consumption. The food which would have had to he
purchased has been grown at home; and the nation is
the richer by the whole of the difference between the
value of its cereal preduce last year and that ot the
harvest now about to begin.