FARMING MATTERS IN SOOTLAND.

Otago Witness, Issue 1505, 18 September 1880, Page 7

FARMING MATTERS IN SOOTLAND.

A correspondent favours ua with the following particulars from letters by the San Francisco mail, which may be of interest to some of our readers : — In February and March fine open weather was enjoyed, but April was very cold and wet, consequently oat f > barley, and potatoes got a bad seed-bed. From end of April to end of June not a drop of rain fell so wheat— though it has stood the drought better than any other cereal— is thin and short-stniwed. Barley a poor crop on clay soils, and the land as hard as iron. Oats everywhere short, and on heavy land miserable. Beans and potatoes promise to be the crop of the season. Turnips a perfect heartbreak ; seed didn t sprout on account of dryness of the mould and prospects are bad. Hay a miserable affair, one ?? d t^T 1 ton *** Sco *ch acre being the product of the best fields. Farms of thin soils severely burnt Factors are fuil-handed, no fewer than 18 farms ie one county being advertised to let now, the aggregate acreage being 3300. Numbers in same locality hay been over and over again advertised, but no offer being made they have been recently stocked by th c landlords and put under the management of servant* j- « fa ™ ler °? one of these lately found himself in difficulties and wished to quit, offering to pay all rents due, and was laughed at by the agent. So the applicant sold off everything quietly, leaving only four old horses and two cows worth little money, cleared off new implements and replaced them with old, and departed, leaving wife and family to keep house. The factor appears in haste, takes out sequestration, gets a warrant to apprehend the tenant, but can't find him ; sends to Ireland, where the man had a farm: not mere, but in his absence sequestrates everything on the Irish farm, and advertises the same for sale. Presently a brother stepped in and produced a document dated a year back, transferring the whole concern to him, and thereon raises an action against the Scotch factor for £1500 damages to character and wrongful I sequestration 1 A good many farmers have lately been coming to grief, and some have arranged with creditors for 5s and 8s in the £ ; but in cases where landlords have used sequestration the dividends, as usual, run from ljd to 3d in the £. Landlords are feeling the effects now of the severely exacting measures they have been taking for some years past. Men with capital are keeping out of their clutches, and as showing how matters go, a few months since a lar^e landed proprietor in an eastern county compounded with his creditors, it is reported, for 5s in the £ debts variously estimated at from £50,000 to £80 000 Last year's wheat is now being threshed, and will not be worth more than 34s a quarter.