CROP PROSPECTS IN GREAT BRITAIN.

Clutha Leader, Volume I, Issue 33, 25 February 1875, Page 6

CROP PROSPECTS IN GREAT BRITAIN.

The '• Mark Lane Express ' - speaks hopefully of the crop prospects for 1875 in Great Britain. It is, of course; far to early in the season to form any definite opinion as to the next harvest, but the months of November and December appear to haye been favourable . to farmers for ploughing and sowing the seed. No advices of moment have yet reached us from continental Europe, and. the crops of France, Hungary, Germany, and Russia regulate the price of grain at London and Liverpool, more perhaps than do the crops of Great Britain.'. The ' Mark Lane Express ' of a recent date notices the scarcity of barley and its relative price with that of wheat. It; says:— "Avery remarkable change is about to take place in the history of agriculture, consequent on the change in the value of English wheat and barley. This may be partly owing to a: deficient crop of barley j but still more tothe total inadequacy of other sources :of supply. - On the other hand, • the importations of wheat have been so liberal, and , our own crop, also so large, . that the best red wheat is selling below malting barley—the one being quoted at 48s ] and the' other at 46s per quarter;: Formerly the: relative, normal value of barley- seldom exceeded two-thirds <. that of wheat, and it must have been a bad. crop indeed that would bring, the two products near upon- a par, or change to ; any! large extent their relative values' on the | market; Su ch, however,- are • the : transpositions produced'byj firsfr, the in-r cresise of the 1 population, amd secondly,? I the duty-free importation of all kinds of. articles of : consumption; ; ■ Among* these the new market prices'; of iwheat and; barley are in every respect the: : most remarkable, ;■ whtJri - we consider the '•' intrinsic^ value .of eachi and ! that the; .open, \vi^Jl^l\tii%ki%i\o'^6^ furnishes^s : u^plib ; si7 Weverfls ifp^l^^^mhix^ barley; that, witbv aH pdr s6^jhoesrJ^f r y^p^l^S-U^libiHf.ipe ■old .and' n'eijr;' w'bjrlds^ so gr^afr 'i§ the ' 'in- . creased; .de&and7 J&l Beer; that oiij? L : OTe*wers/ are v "again 'tisihg' : 'enormous : 'a^uWoisuWlr rj^Vmo)§ise's-- Ws, the 'readiest and ' Wst 'ec'b^biHical" 'wsgM : ' offering itself,"