Barley has made great strides during the past three weeks, and now is more favourably spoken of than wheat is. Oats still promise to be the best of the white straw crops, and will probably yield over an average produce. Winter beans are almost too stout, and there are complaints of defective podding; but it is really a remarkably good bean year, and a large yield is to be expected. Peas, again, have all along looked well, and the warm weather came just in time to mature them properly. A large proportion of the hay crop has been stacked in bad condition, which is the more unfortunate seeing that the cut was a very heavy one. Mangels have got on well, but can scarcely be a full crop; while turnips are not as well spoken of as they were at the end of June, complaints of loss of plant through attacks of "fly" being common. Potatoes, though touched with disease in some parts of the country, are much better, on the whole, than could have been expected after so much wet weather, and a good crop of the important tuber is still possible on the whole, the prospects of English farmers, although brighter than they have been during the last three years at least, are certainly not brilliant. Whether they will have a fairly remunerative harvest or another failure depends upon the weather of the rest of July and the whole of August.

Source: The Illustrated London News, No.2256—Vol. LXXXI, Saturday, July 29, 1882, p.119

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