Great Britain -- Description and travel; Great Britain -- Rural conditions
No rain, until just at sunset, and then very little. I must now look
back. From Horsham to within a few miles of Petworth is in the Weald of
Sussex; stiff land, small fields, broad hedge-rows, and invariably
thickly planted with fine, growing oak trees. The corn here consists
chiefly of wheat and oats. There are some bean-fields, and some few
fields of peas; but very little barley along here. The corn is very good
all along the Weald; backward; the wheat almost green; the oats quite
green; but, late as it is, I see no blight; and the farmers tell me that
there is no blight. There may be yet, however; and therefore our
Government, our "_paternal_ Government," so anxious to prevent "over
production," need not _despair_ as yet, at any rate. The beans in the
Weald are not very good. They got lousy before the wet came; and it came
rather too late to make them recover what they had lost. What peas there
are look well. Along here the wheat, in general, may be fit to cut in
about 16 days' time; some sooner; but some later, for some is perfectly
green. No Swedish turnips all along this country. The white turnips are
just up, coming up, or just sown. The farmers are laying out lime upon
the wheat fallows, and this is the universal practice of the country. I
see very few sheep. There are a good many orchards along in the Weald,
and they have some apples this year; but, in general, not many. The
apple trees are planted very thickly, and, of course, they are small;
but they appear healthy in general; and in some places there is a good
deal of fruit, even this year. As you approach Petworth, the ground
rises and the soil grows lighter. There is a hill which I came over,
about two miles from Petworth, whence I had a clear view of the Surrey
chalk-hills, Leithhill, Hindhead, Blackdown, and of the South Downs,
towards one part of which I was advancing. The pigs along here are all
black, thin-haired, and of precisely the same sort of those that I took
from England to Long Island, and with which I pretty well stocked the
American states. By-the-by, the trip, which Old Sidmouth and crew gave
me to America, was attended with some interesting consequences; amongst
which were the introducing of the Sussex pigs into the American
farmyards; the introduction of the Swedish turnip into the American
fields; the introduction of American apple trees into England; and the
introduction of the making, in England, of the straw plat, to supplant
the Italian; for, had my son not been in America, this last would not
have taken place; and in America he would not have been, had it not been
for Old Sidmouth and crew. One thing more, and that is of more
importance than all the rest, Peel's Bill arose out of the "puff-out"
Registers; these arose out of the trip to Long Island; and out of Peel's
Bill has arisen the best bothering that the wigs of the Boroughmongers
ever received, which bothering will end in the destruction of the
Boroughmongering.
Public-domain text, read in full here on John Shaqi.
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