is time that these degenerate dogs were swept away at any rate. The Blackthorns are in full bloom, and make a grand show. When you quit Reigate to go towards Crawley, you enter on what is called the _Weald of Surrey_. It is a level country, and the soil is a very, very strong loam, with clay beneath to a great depth. The fields are small, and about a third of the land covered with oak-woods and coppice-woods. This is a country of wheat and beans; the latter of which are about three inches high, the former about seven, and both looking very well. I did not see a field of bad-looking wheat from Reigate-hill foot to Crawley, nor from Crawley across to this place, where, though the whole country is but poorish, the wheat looks very well; and if this weather hold about twelve days, we shall recover the lost time. They have been stripping trees (taking the bark off) about five or six days. The nightingales sing very much, which is a sign of warm weather. The house-martins and the swallows are come in abundance; and they seldom do come until the weather be set in for mild. _Wednesday, 7th May._ The weather is very fine and warm; the leaves of the _Oaks_ are coming out very fast: some of the trees are nearly in half-leaf. The _Birches_ are out in leaf. I do not think that I ever saw the wheat look, take it all together, so well as it does at this time. I see in the stiff land no signs of worm or slug. The winter, which destroyed so many turnips, must, at any rate, have destroyed these mischievous things. The oats look well. The barley is very young; but I do not see anything amiss with regard to it.--The land between this place and Reigate is stiff. How the corn may be in other places I know not; but in coming down I met with a farmer of Bedfordshire, who said that the wheat looked very well in that county; which is not a county of clay, like the Weald of Surrey. I saw a Southdown farmer, who told me that the wheat is good there, and that is a fine corn-country. The bloom of the fruit trees is the finest I ever saw in England. The pear-bloom is, at a distance, like that of the _Gueldre Rose_; so large and bold are the bunches. The plum is equally fine; and even the Blackthorn (which is the hedge-plum) has a bloom finer than I ever saw it have before. It is rather _early_ to offer any opinion as to the crop of corn; but if I were compelled to bet upon it, I would bet upon a good crop. Frosts frequently come after this time; and if they come in May, they cause "things to come about" very fast. But if we have no more frosts: in short, if we have, after this, a good summer, we shall have a fine laugh at the Quakers' and the Jews' press. Fifteen days' sun will bring _things about_ in reality. The wages of labour in the country have taken a rise, and the poor-rates an increase, since first of March. I am glad to hear that the _Straw Bonnet_ affair has excited a good deal of attention. In answer to