The Stourbridge Observer, Cradley Heath, Halesowen & District Chronicle.
Stourbridge, West Midlands, England, 1875-08-28 00:00:00

THE HARVEST.

The Times, of Monday,ithe 23rd, published the following
letters :

Sir,—Four weeks of brilliant harvest weather,
scarcely interrupted by a single shower, have vastly
improved harvest prospects and removed many of our
fears. The sodden ground, the soaked, laid, and
watery crops, unripened and sad-looking, have been
thoroughly dried and ripened, and although the ker-
nels in the heads of wheat are less numerous and
smaller than in an abundant season, they will prove
of fair flour-making quality.
The barley crop, laid early and matted with clover
and weeds, has been saved by the dry weather, but
will, in too many cases, be unfit for pale ale. If this
fine weather continues a large crop of it will be har-
vested.

The season has especially suited the oat crops,
which, previous to the wet time, were unpromising.
There will be a second crop of clover, more perfect and
abundant than the first. It is in full flower ready for
the scythe, and with a suitable time for making will
give us valuable stacks.
Winter beans are good. Spring beans middling; peas
not very good. Potatoes are greatly saved by the
drying up of the fungus and preventing its extension.
There will be a good yield. Let us hope that our
general crop of human and animal food will prove to
be an average one.
Root crops are very promising, but are ready for
more rain.—l am, Sir, your obedient servant,
J. J. MECHI.

Tiptree-hall, Belvedan, Essex, Aug. 21.
P.S.—Another fortnight will about complete ou
harvest here. The throbbing of the steam plough and
the jingling of the reaping machine are common now
in this neighbourhood. The crop of cereal straw is
unusually bulky.

Sir,—A short time back you were good enough to
publish an estimate which I had formed of the pro-
bable yield of the then standing wheat crop, which
was to the effect that, although there was a fully
average growth of straw, the ears were so defective
that there could not possibly be an average yield of
corn. Now that the "unerring test" of the thrashing
machine has been applied to the crop in various parts
of the country, it wohld be interesting to ascertain the
results. I have just seen a good looking piece of wheat,
13 acres in extent, thrashed, and found that out of a full
waggon-load of sheaves there were only obtained on
an average a little less than 13 bushels of wheat. Now,
in a fruitful season, from 20 to 24 bushels are got
from the same quantity of straw, and I have never
known less than twelve bushels to be obtained, except
from Talavera wheat badly biighted. In the field
thrashed there were two and a half waggon-loads of
sheavestc :the acre, a quantity which last year would
have given at least twelve sacks of wheat, but which
this year yields only eight. The variety of wheat is
that called "rough chaff," a sort very extensively
grown in Essex and Kent, and usually one of the
heaviest croppers on our heavy land. The crop
thrashed was decidedly over an average, as far as the
appearance went, even for this good wheat-growing
district, and it is well known that corn never " rises "
so well as when it is thrashed directly out of the field.
Two waggon-loads of sheaves are considered a fair
crop in most seasons; but these this year will probably
not yield more than six sacks of corn—a miserable
crop for good heavy land.—l am, Sir, your obedient
servant, Ax EAST ESSEX FARMER.

Monday's Magnet says :—" During the week con-
siderable progress has been made in harvest work. A.
large breadth of the land has been cleared, and thrash-
ing has been general. So far the result is satisfactory,
both in respect to quantity and quality, but not more
so than was apprehended. The new produce which
has been forwarded to market has come to hand in
fairly good condition, owing to the fine weather, but
the quality has been second-rate. The white samples
appear to have suffered the most severely, the coarser
red descriptions not having experienced so great a de-
preciation. In the more northern districts the crops
are turning out much better than those further south.
As regards the yield of barley and oats prospects are
much the same as last week. From the Continent and
America nothing fresh has transpired."

The Mark Lane Express of Monday writes :—" The
splendid weather experienced for the first five days of the
past week did much to remove the apprehensions for
the harvest, and farmers who were forward have been
doing their best to get in the first instalment of the
wheat crop, which has been gathered in much better
order than expected; and though we had a heavy rain
on Thursday night, let us hope these visits will cease,
and permit the future gatherings to be stacked in fair
condition. With such a sudden outburst of high
summer, a reduction in prices was to be expected, and
they generally have yielded is. to 2s. per quarter, and
in some cases 2s. to 3s. but the return of rain would
soon recover the decline. The more acquaintance,
however, we have of the new samples makes them
look poor in comparison with last year's excellence;
and though some in favoured soils will be fine, there
will be less flour and more offal than we have lately
beert used to, whatever be the future weather, and
with a less extended growth and diminished yield
per acre. Paris, like London, has felt the influence of
the beneficial change, and given way in the price of
flour 3 francs, or 2s. per sack, but the provinces still vary
as respects wheat, though the number of rising markets
has been far less numerous than those where there
has been a fall. In many parts of France the
harvest has been gathered, but in none is it believed
that this year will be anything like the last. Accounts
differ widely as to the extent of the deficiency,
but all agree as to the fact; and those who have
gathered were, some of them, so hurried by the fear of
the returning rain that much of the corn is in poor
condition and unfit for the mill without a free ad-
mixture of old. Violent local storms have still been
the order of the day, with unusually large hailstones,
doing immense local damage visiting not only France
but Belgium and Holland. 'Our general averages have
gone back 25., but the deliveries have nearly doubled
those of the previous year; so those farmers who could
hold their good crops till recently were well paid for
their patience. Prices generally in Europe have little
changed. In Germany they were firm."

The Times has alzo published the following letter :

Sir,—The agricultural year being now within a week
of its close, our harvest prospects may be reviewed
with some degree of certainty.
Probably, in no preceding season has there been such
a transition of prospects. Up to the end of May the
grass crop was despaired of, while appearances
justified the most sanguine hopes in regard to our
cereal and pulse crops. Subse iuent rains, although
they spoilt much hay, have produced abundant keep
throughout the summer, and improved the oat crop,
which delights in moisture, but, at the same time, in
conjunction with late spring frosts they have materially
injured wheat and barley. From close observations,
and the result of thrashings out, I am led to the con-
clusion that the produce of both these crops will be
25 per cent. below an average in quantity, and 5 per
cent, in weight and quality. Probably, together, they
occupy an equal area to last year, but that occupied
by wheat is undoubtedly less, and the barley area pro-
portionately greater. Assuming the former, instead
of 3,883,000 acres, as it was last year, to be 3,500,000,
and the yield at 22 bushels an acre, the gross produce
would be only 9,625,000 quarters, probably the smallest
within the memory of man. The deficiency for con-
sumption, taking it at the minimum rate of 22 million
quarters, would then be 13i million quarters, con-
stituting the largest demand for foreign supplies on
record.

Barley, which, probably, covers 2,800,000 acres,
instead of 2 millions as last year, is universally dis-
coloured, and, from promising to be an extra crop, is
now likely to turn out a deficient and inferior one.
Foreign importations cannot, unfortunately, as in the
cage of wheat and oats, remedy the defects Of home
growth, as very little foreign barley is convertible into
the finer qualities of malt. Our great pale-ale brewers
are, therefore, likely to be at their wits' end for our
adequate supply, and fine samples of barley will, no i
doubt, command as high f not higher prices per
bushel and per lb. weight than wheat as they did last
year.
The exhaustion of the stock of old hay and the in-
• ferior quality of the new will enhance the value of oats,
and, fortunately, the crop, from at one time appearing
a failure, has come up to nearly an average both in
this country and in -Ireland, and, as the area exceeds

that of wheat, and is nearly one-half greater than that
under barley, it is especially fortunate this season.
Roots are everywhere abundant, but as they require
the accompaniment of fodder for the maintenance of
live stock, and as this is deficient and inferior, I would
strongly recommend the whole being converted into
chaff and spiced, and etraw sub3tituted for it. As the
area appropriated for hay in the -United Kingdom ig
over five million acres, the loss on this large extent of
land this year may so far be set down at from ten to
fifteen millions of money.
Potatoes, too, are everywhere rapidly decaying' on
account of the damp state of the ground, and I fear
there will be a poor residue to lift in the Autumn.
On the whole, therefore, I consider this will be a
very mixed agricultural year.—l am, Sir, your obedient
servant, THOS. C. SCOTT.
Aligmt 23. _ _ _