The Dorset County Express and Agricultural Gazette.
Dorchester, Dorset, England, 1861-08-06 00:00:00

lagriculturt.

THE HARVEST.

The ride from Bath to Salisbury is through a very
rich and beautiful country. The valley of the Amu,
through *bleb it winds for • great part of the way,
. is OAS of the moist picturesque and varied in all Eng-
land ; and just now, with the bay harveld alnioq
1
finished, end the wheat harvest jest about to begin, is
more full of beauty than ever. It takes a good deal to
, rouses dull lethargic farmer to a sense of the natural
i beauties about liiin, to which he has been used all his
' life, hut to day m strongly were all these beauties
Ilicisastental by the glorious sunshine and the rwilt tran-
sitions from cloud to sun, that even the bucolic mind
Iwas atirre I op long before the trait. reached Westbury
and ite White HOPI) OD the chalky hill-side. Words of
1 praise as to di. weather—and" the crape don't look so
1 ad after all," were actually to be heard more thau oncial;
1 and, south to say, it issitlfienit to imagine bow •iiy, even
the most obdurate of agricultural mouths, could remain
, doted. Looking at the bay harvest, as a whole, it lias
, been far above the average. Wu have had, in this
Iregion, not only goodly crops, but well saved. St.
I Switkin, it is true, gave us a watery blessing ; and it
lias rained, sometimes heavily, and sometimes but in •
Noising shower, on many a day since. Bat in spite of
S. Sc ithin, and in spite of the Times prophet, we have
iii•maged to weather the storm. Nearly all the hay 1
between Bath and Slaslitiry is saved end safely stacked •
and franc all I can learn, bather wet ths prosq.ect of a
good bay harvest is aptally promising. Further north
, touch, it salmis, remains to be done With thO liii‘yk
but even there the rain bases yet dmie no harm:- •1,
' As fur the wheat, it is hardly ',fusible to look bettek.,
' Some. no doubt, especially on the wide opm sweep be- '
levee Westbury end Salisbury, bas heen rather beatom
down by the heavy wind and rain • few nights ago; but '
these are exceptions, and none is so beaten down that a ,
few days of tins gloi ious sunshine will not goon rails, it
again. In several places the wheat harvest is actually,
commenced ; but in a far larger number the fields,'
" white to the harvest," wait till all baud* can be spared
I the hayfield ,to cut and carry the corn. The rain
has at times been heavy ; but what we fear much
more than rain, and what has done more harm, I feet,
is a sort of heavy, dull, apathetic atmosphere of elouile
and misty rain, which the " Ueda" here call blight.
This, whatever it moans, has certainly come down, and
touched, among other things, the beans and potatoes.
When it gets among the beans it hi, "awfully bad,"
especially where "the fly be a-cutting in," An it certainly
is in sonie few fields. We must hope that it won't
spread, like the measles, that just now atoms wander-
ing through the Royal families of Europe.
As for potatoes themselves—the true Royal family
in point of general usefulness Rod value—they certainly
are touched. The parson of this very parish, over-
looking Salisbury Plain, is a great potato-grower. fie
it a sanguine fanner; and a fortnight ago his potatoes
were looking the very perfection of pinks and early
kidneys. In one night the blight came, and, descending
like am, unseen enemy, burnt the tops of the plants as
with • rtallhot iron. What was he to do? Tice great
specific, were all equally infallible and equally futile.
Itninours of the potato disease have reaceed us from
Lincolnshire, Yorkshire and Devon, although the plants
hut for some time looked extremely healthy; while in
other parts of the eastern district the crop also lacks
the firmness once observable. The barley, too, suffers
year after year from obscure diseases, and nothing is
done. This year the complainte ere heavy against the
hurley far and wide, lint still the harvest proepecte,
on the whole, are bright and fair enough. "The
Shepherd can tialieleiry Plain" is no longer • mere
plearent, poetical, I.4th—a good subject for soporific
tracts—for I aim him yesterday on the hill side, near
Saliabary-, sitting on a heathy slope, with some three
hundred shoe, in front of him, and a dog by his side.
But lie was 'making • short pipe, Rod looking as if he
could do • good day's' work. So, we must hope for the
best.—Correspuudent to the Standar-EL