HARVESTS AT HOME AND ABROAD.

Star (Christchurch), Issue 3897, 13 October 1880, Page 4

HARVESTS AT HOME AND ABROAD.

English farmers, who'are notorious grum- f biers, are forced to admit that if the present 1 fair weather last 3 another week or bo, the ' crops will be all cafelv gathered, and that the yield will be above the average. At this present moment the country loops splendid j the crops have everywhere recovered from the late rains, aad except ji ona or two small areas in the Midjands aio standing well and of an excellent colour. F-om the gyreat

eom-ra -ising landß of the Far West, where the farmer is not po dependent upon the weathi »r; equally nourishing accounts come to hand. Only in Russia are harvest prospects gloom jin the extreme. Tho jiold will be inferior to that of any year since the famine of r 1873. Whole districts have been ravaged by a ne w agricultural pest,- which threatens to ruin the crops altogether. This most recent plagv id is the beetle known as the Anisoplia Ausl riava, which was first seen 15 years a^o, but which is now ornnipretent and in the ■mo 9( •;'" terrible swarms throughout Southern Rur. ria. Some idea of tho numbers in which this devastating insect is found mny be gar.l lercd from tho fact tlwt tons and tons •wei ght have been reaped in various commu nos, while a single field in Kharkol £ was said to contain no less thf'tn three hundred and fifty millions of insects. No remedy has as yet heen disco rered for the plague, which threatens to pr tralyse agricultural industry in Southern 'R-iUßsia. Famine with all its terrible nccomf animents is predicted for this winter in that v .nhappy country, which might yet escape the rorst disaßtera if it were en'ightened enough t o encourage free trade. But the importation « >f corn from more favoured lands in tho

. Antipodes and the New World in sufficient < juantitiea to give the peasantry bread, is ijuite impossible with existing protective laws. It remains to be seen whether the Government will relax them or let the people starve. — Home News.