The Sun.
London, England, 1852-09-08 00:00:00

THE HARVEST.

The harvest is almost over; this year's wheat is
finding its way into the market; and we are beginning
to have particular information of the crops abroad. So
what says Mark-lane, and what is the language of the
agricultural journals, usually so ominous and pathetic at
itnhgisetaimikeemeoeitfygttehheeneytreetlahlrye?wwhoAodlsiefsto the harvest itself, the ac-
countsw are various. We never remember when they
Provi-
dence and can only bow to the wisdom of PrOVi-
LlinatgiOntismhianlgi
that the plenty of
the summer and the unseasonable province shall make up tor the
deficiency of another.,noatndsudffiesrtr,ibaunta-
conspired, first to wither th
the line of distinction.. The Humber seems this year
South of it the parching heats of
receivedr,
rains of August have
then to make it sprout, so at laeatset it, is said, though agri-
cultural then to blight it,
athlweahliyeauemvybe.wretehhee harvest has been
cauillotwuraanleme.ursmuorrsthaeref
yes, and while thea better
farmers are,
luatnedre,ranthdetsheaeicreruompss,tvaeere
it is said, still too busy in the fields to bring their corn
to harvest; nobody knows what to call the price of wheat
still
more even bad news of the potato crop here,
more in Ireland, seems to make little positive impanrdesm
on
on prices. The averages are rising, the last was4a•s, 7d.
But who gets the average?" asks the south-country
farmer, whose wheat lay for a fortnight, till the weeds
bound it to the ground. So far, then, as regards the ex-
pectations of the farmer, we may set down wheat at the
figure it has almost stood at for several years. Forty
shillings a-quarter seems now the safest guess for the
long run. Is that a good or a had look out? It is the
prospect now before the farmers. Yet we venture to ask,
where are the lamentations? where the piteous cries for
help? where the appeals for something to be done?
where the sullen resolves to quit the country if some-
thing were not done that we have had for the last seven
years, particularly at this season. The farmers' friends
are in power, and so little pressure is applied to them
that they intend to wait near three months, that is to the
end of November, before they produce their grand spe-
cific; and the farmers themselves are the chief apologists
of this delay. What unwonted patience! What newly..
acquired resignation! Was it for this the 300 gentlemen
making the country party seceded so long from office,
flared up into agitators, and subsided into misanthropes?
Was it merely that at the end of seven years they might
learn to sit like patience on a monument, and smile at
40s. a-quarter? That, in fact, is what they are now
come to.

The truth is, that agriculturists have at last discovered
that whatever is to be done must be done by themselves.
They have passed through the worst—that is, the trea-
ted°u iteete—and they now see that they can manage to
bet oc, like other manufacturers and tradesmen in this
much-peopled and much-taxed country. They are also
observing that time itself, as Bacon says, is the greatest
innovator, and is just now unusually busy at innovations.
Indeed, changes are now occurring of the most momen-
tous character, and that require as much vigilance on
our were passing through icebergs at the
orea partle up a
threatens to become precious. On the one band wages
oea n we
Arctic winter. Man, hitherto a drug,
must rise, and our men will be masters. They will ask
,or good cottages, and that near their work. They will
have their little homesteads, their pigs, and even their
cows. On the other hind, they will become more
educated and more intelligent, as well as physically
stronger. They will do their work better.
Then the burden of pauperism will alreost dis-
appear: it is going rapidly. Of our present vast
pauper expenditure little will remain, after a few years,
but the establishment charges. We may even live to
see our huge union workhouses actually shut up, or only
tenanted by a few old people. Then the law of settle-
:cent_that knot which has puzzled so many states-
and economists—which makes the man a slave
to his master, and the master a slave to his man,
but which nobody hes yet been able to mend, will be-
come a mere shadow under the operation of changes that
destroy all local ties. The whole population are adrift.
Every petty station, every little market town, sees the
emigrant on his way to Australia. Adding this new
drain to that will undimini,hed from Ireland, we shall
probably find that not less than half a million of our
ay
people have left our shores in the year 1852. Solvuntur
rise tabulw, we may now sof those Settlement
questions, that for a century have disturbed the
peace and drained the funds of every parish in this
kingdom. Nothing has hitherto stood in the "AY
of agriculture so much as the necessity of .
ionteabor
employ-
ing
a vast quantity of unskilled and even
been
dinate labour. Though the necessity
new
this case, that if they employ machinery, or
mode of cultivation, or if they labourers
so stringent of late years, yet most farmehrassrarsenystill in
from a distance, they
find
themselves under
hands.
invi,te pe a sort of
compuliion to oon using
it
smote to the use of reap-
there will no longer be any 0
edients for economiz-
, other exP disappearing, and
iAn igl compulsion
machines
anodf
a il this
thseo r t
ing labour. The labourer, and better
handle machinery, and do the
taught, will learn how t_
dnozen such men as have hitherto
work of two, or half a
encumbered
the farm. The quicker the la-
worked and education for the new and more
bourer is prepared by .
which he is placed, the better
coition in
advantageous P le and for his employer.
will it be for
fh i °yet's r a have also opened the eyes of the
ntoh;inrbeotwter paid
The la" few
- ability of other crops and other modes
to the P he has • herited from his
farmer than those inherited
of cultivation
father-, is now lying before us the last number
.
Theres no
of the Journal of the Royal Agricultural Society, and
•
serious discussion of the question whe-
ther the British we find in it a se
farmer can profitably cultivate man_
of.
rzPl for the manufacture The balance
goldwu
16 given in
favour of the cultivation, the only difll-
•
catty
confessed being the want of a manufacture on a
sufficiently large scale. Again, should wheat obsti-
nately stand at its present price, barley and oats will
prove more remunerative ; and even stall-feeding, which
the other day was pronounced a ruinous occupation, is
now found once more to pay. Notwithstanding all this
emigration, our towns, our factories, our ports, our
docks and harbours, seem to thrive as much as ever;
and it is in these seats of skilled industry that the far-
mer's best customers are found, rather than among his
own ill-paid labourers. But, as we have pointed out
above, the more skilled and better paid labourers that
will now do the work of the farm will be much better
customers for the produce of it than the poor squalid
creatures that carry home on the Saturday night a mi-
serable pittance of Si. or 9s. for as many mouths. We
are come upon an age when the value, the powers, and
the wants of man are suddenly and considerably raised,
and when everybody gives more, and receives more in
return. dew fortunate that on the threshold of this
now state of things, more wonderful than any lwicih
revolution could have brought us to, we have
ear
already
got rid of Protection, and have not that old fraudmitted our-
selves
to mar
our present good fortune. We havee--om
and selves to the general laws of Providence,
Provi-
dence now rewards our confidence with the vista of so-
such as men
cial improvements and unexpectedblessings
had not dreamt of ten years
doubt. Its exact ago. It is a new era that
is opening to us. That non©
cha-
racter and its results are other can
questions ; but the fact
revolution in all the relations
of a great, spontaneo us
Rural as in other sciences, is by
of society, and in agricu
this time evident to those least prepared for the change.
—Times.

oa tt t ot nh
e—brre
ghitirnei n
gh.a s
cobenesindera-
fair demand in our market during the past week, which had
been made, prices ruling much the same as
SEPT.apiea4r:cee
GLASGOW,
those of last week.. There seems, however, to be a general
anticipation of a rise as the year advances. There has been
an active demand for goods, both fur home trade and export,
arabtlheesraaleds rohoapvieng
during the week, and prices are fully rn iintained. Pig Iron—
Since our last report the pig iron market has been rather in-
active, without, however, any change in the nominal quota-
tions. Blixed number warrants, 455. 6d. cash, sellers; buyers
shy, and only offer 455. F,or shipment, No. 1 may be quoted
at 45e. 3d. ; No. 3, 445. 6d. ; No. 1 Gartsherrie, 455.) d.
Bars are from 61. 10s. to 61. 155., and plates 91. to 91. 10x.;
with great actiyity ill the latter.