The Sun.
London, England, 1860-09-06 00:00:00

HARVEST PROSPECTS 1N IRELAND.

An intelligent and evidently well-informed cor-
respondent of the Dublin Evening post gives the
subjoined detailed report of the state and prospects
of the harvest in portions of the southern and mid-
land districts. His accounts are upon the whole
favowrable, and there is certainly as yet no room
either for despondency or alarm. Last week the
same authority supplied some equally satisfactory
information with regard to the progress of the har-
vest in Wexford and other parts of the province of
Leinster. His present communication dates from
Monkstown, county of York, September 3 :
"I have been, since last I wrote, through King's
anl Queen's counties, a considerable portion of
Tipperary, and a wide district of the county
of Cork. I have heard much, from good sources,
of other counties, but I can speak of those I
mention from personal observation. Unless where
rivers have overflowed, or there has been an accu-
mulation of water in low lands, the crops have yet
escaped very well, with the exception of potatoes,
which have suffered much in some districts. There
are fields of.prostrate grain in some places, but it is
really surprising to see how kindly the soil has
taken all the moisture, as if the rain quite agreed
with it. This process of absorption has been greatly
assisted by arterial and thorough drainage—the
latter having been carried out far and wide. The
real state of affairs, as regards the crops, I shall en-
deavour briefly to explain. There is a great deal of
wheat, even on soils not very 'well adapted for it.
In general, wheat has suffered very little—in many
places not at all; and somehow, the straw is getting
the autumnal hue with so little of sunshine, and
after so much of rain. Certainly the grainhashanvoet
filled so well, and I am sure, even if we
fine days before the reaping, it will not turn out as
good in quality as if the ripening process had
gradually proceeded in the natural way by summer
heat. But still the wheat is in fair condition, and if
we had dry warm weather for the remainder of the
autumn I would have no fears as to the result, and
we might calculate upon a produce not far below au
average, if at all below it. For you must bear in
mind that we hear nothing about smut—the terror
of the tillage farmer—and certainly I have seen
nothing of it. Whether this good symptom is owing
to the wet, or notwithstanding all the rain, I shall
not pronounce ; but the gratifying result is that we
have a great breadth of wheat yet free from that
blighting visitation, and the crop has up to this
time held up well, only requiring a kindly sun to
bring it to maturity. With reference to oats, the
crop has certainly suffered, and many fields are still
green or prostrate ; but it is a hardy grain ; and I
have good hopes of it—not, perhaps, of a very large
general yield, but of a fair moderate crop; that is to
say, provided the weather now take up. It was
again rainy yesterday forenoon, with rather a cold
wind, as I came over from Middleton to this place ;
but it cleared up after 2 o'clock, and has since re-
mained fine—the wind having gone round towards
the north, with a fine bracing air, although a some-
what colder temperature, and at length I begin to
hope that the rain has passed away. There is very
little barley about here • but in other localities,
although there are in different fields, generally that
grain promises well. With reference to hay, there
is great loss in low situations and heavy lands near
rivers ; and generally the crop has suffered, but
there is a heavy produce of what may be called.
after-grass hay. There will be great inequality in
the market value of hay according to quality. All
things considered the potato crop has escaped pretty
well. If excessive moisture could have killed the
potato we should now have but a very scanty crop.
One effect of the deluge of 1860 has been to put an
end to the theory, so much in vogue among experi-
mental and ' scientific' farmers, about the delicacy
and great sensibility of the potato since the murrain.
of 1846. I have made the actual state of the
potato a subject of anxious inquiry during the
last month ; and I can report that the root
has been grievously calumniated. Allowing
for all the wet and the saturated state of
the fields, whether in drills or lazy-beds, for sd
long a time, the root has proved itself, speaking
generally, nearly as healthy and vigorous as in
the best years since the famine. In most places
where I have been the foliage is withered—in
many cases black ; and the root is affected by
blight, more or less; but taking the crop all round
I am sanguine that there will be a fair yield of
sound potatoes. There will be a fine potato crop
in some parts of the country ; there will be, allow-
ing for loss by blight, a pretty good crop in less
favoured districts, especially if the present promises
of fine weather shall be realised. Our autumn is
yet to come. We have had no summer worth
naming, but it is time yet for fine weather to (nes-
plete the harvest. One part of the poor man's. har-
vest, however, is almost past hope—l mean the
saving of turf, which, in the districts through which
I have passed, is almost exclusively the fue'i of the
peasantry, even of the farmers. In one of the Cork
journals I have seen an account of an unprece-
dented amount of speculation in the c,o'rn trade,' in
consequence of the continuance of bad weather.
Having made inquiry, I have ascertained from a
reliable source that there has been .a good deal of
speculation in foreign grain in Cork, although, per-
haps, not to the extent reported."