The Express.
London, England, 1860-09-05 00:00:00

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TO COItIMPONDLITW.
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p= nut be as lie office, 10, bouvorlo.wroot, by Two
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SATICALCZT.
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A 1; %ME 1W SPICCL4TION. lir. C. iiallants.—And Till
C/lIISTKNING. Mr. Clark Mrs. Wilklisa

r.iniciars.

Tim trims*, itAc7siai7isan.limas IL Modems. deem
Mathews. Wes.. sad 111 r Lione..rthy, Miss
L Leeeern. and YID L !oees —And THEnisi NIGHT.
Mr. n Harris . YIN N. Harris —Commence st 7.

MON WATTI AT LONDON RRTDOL
Two DAV —llconstaa Ok. Pro Anemia, 41i, SOW
To-XOLlWW—Mandag, 6i 6a *Storm" 6k. SLa.

LONDON, II E'DNESDAY, SEPT. 5.

Eire day that pleases over our heads at the
present critical season without storm or heavy
ram brings reamunince and cheerfulness in its
train. We have been so schooled to the absentee
of hot weather, that we hardly seem any longer to
look for it. An agricultural year without one
month of summer used to be equivalent to a year
of general failure and almost certain scarcity ; and
a late harvest, without a hot and dry September,
would in our fathers' time have been synonymous
with a dram of gold and a dearth of food. Yet
here we are in the midst of late harvesting with-
out having had one week of summer, and after
enduring as much rain since the end of May as in
the corresponding period of any three ordinary
years, with a very moderate temperature and
ponderous masses of dark cloud sulkily loiter-
ing all the day long near the horizon ; yet
there is no famine, no gambling price for corn
ohtmnahle in the market, no reduction in the
stock of bullion in the Bank, and no more than
the usual and allowable amount of grumbling
among our agricultural friends. A largo breadth
of wheat and barley remains still uncut ; and of
the crops that have fallen beneath the sickle within
the last few days a good deal remains to be led.
Yet we bear of no misgivings entertained by rea-
Baud& men as to its being safely garnered in ;
and the concurrent weight of reliable testimony
from all quarters warrants the belief that, although
the yield may here and there be below the average,
apes the whole our granaries are shout to be re-
pliniehed with a rich and untainted store. From
Linadnehize we learn that the quality of the
awn promises to be good, sail nothing ia said of
blight or mildew. In Yorkshire things are more
backward, and not one seld in three will be
" down" until the end of pest week ; but all, we
are assured, will be by that time pretty safe, unless
some great change for the worse takes place in the
weather. On the east coast of Scotland frequent
showers alternated with so many intervals of bright
and breezy weather that the labours of the reaper
were punned with little interruption, and no un-
terminable augury is formed of the " tattle of the
" whole." The Lothism, as is their wont, have
this year led the way ; but even in the western
counties things do not look amiss, notwithstanding
all the days and nights of soaking wet with which
they have been vested since Midsummer-clay.
The letter of a correspooclent, which we print
ehewbsre, expresses an opinion that the wrinkle
in Scotland will go far to compensate for any de-
&army that may eventually be found to the
south of the Tweed. That there are districts not
up to the mark of drainage, cultivation, or
handling the crop when ripe, we do not of course
deny. Suffolk still lags behind Norfolk in its
habits of husbandry ; and Donet has not learned
to compete with Berke or Kent. Bat our out-
look is over the face of the kingdom ; and the
result of our observations is eminently satisfactory
up to the present time.

How coons it to pass, then, that we can
apparently do with worse weather than in former
times 1 That the price of corn, notwithstand-
ing the continuance of a singularly unpropitious
reason, should not have gone above 665. a
quarter may be attributable to free trade, and
to the fact of a luxuriant crop haring been early
saved in America, se well as in the regions border-
ing ea the Sea of And. Hut open porta and
abundance of foreign grain ready to come in, do
not account for the disappointment of gloomy fore-
bodings as to the character and extent of our home
grown supply, and the consequent wariness of
speculation in imports from afar. Wo must dive
somewhat deeper into tenses if we would correctly
estimate such effects. The policy of free
trade may, indeed, fairly claim to have had
much to do with the matter ; but it
has been rather indirectly than directly.
It is to the revolution wrought in national
agriculture during the last ten or dozen
years that se must refer the great fact that in
1860 an average harvest has ripened without a
hot July, and will he saved without a dry Sep-
tember. Twentyyears since, one or the other might
have happened, but not Loth. We can call to
mind harvests as late, but then they were rescued
at the- last by a sudden "taking up of the weather
" in the nick of time." This year we have had
little warmth of atmosphere, so that the wheat
and barley have not become coloured with the hue
of maturity until the close of August. Now that the
gold,n change hues begun to spread user feu and
upland, the once indispensable brightness of sky
and dryness of the air has not come to console us;
yet harvesting goes on ; field after field is cleared
ot its yellow wealth ; though ohm damp with
receil rain, the corn is found to he undamaged ;
and a thousand appliances are put in requisition
for doing artificially what the faithless wind and
sunshine had forgotten to do. This is the real
triumidi of practical science, industry, and skill.
This is, indeed, the crowning praise of physical
civilization. And this is that inestimable benefit
seeming from the permanent adoption of the policy
of oi..h porta, which sir R. 0P11.!.7 I'Let sus scoffed
at Ly his blind and bigoted followers for

confidently prognosticating as the probable conse-
quence of free trade. Had the uncertainty of
price, ranging from forty to she hundred kW
twenty shillings a quarter, been iwffrinid to eon-
thine under the illusory check t. ate
no vigorous effort would hove ?hien madai"&e •.-
gate by improved methods.' of "Otani the 00M-
quences of uncertainty in the seasons. As against
total or partial toes in one year under the old
system of husbandry the farmer was always told
.te set off the large grants of • lucky season. The
wisdom of good government, and the advantage of
sound and enlightened industry, ie to insure as far
as ponible against those contingencies that make
np in the minds of the ignorant the idea of " luck."
Happily for us and for our children we are steadily
emerging from the semi-barbarous condition
in which foresight, invention, and art are but
scholarly speculations, and men are content to
abide "their luck."