Great Britain -- Description and travel; Great Britain -- Rural conditions
I got to Thursley about sunset, and without experiencing any
inconvenience from the wet. I have mentioned the state of the corn as
far as Selborne. On this side of that village I find it much forwarder
than I found it between Selborne and Ropley Dean. I am here got into
some of the very best barley-land in the kingdom; a fine, buttery,
stoneless loam, upon a bottom of sand or sand-stone. Finer barley and
turnip-land it is impossible to see. All the corn is good here. The
wheat not a heavy crop; but not a light one; and the barley all the way
along from Headley to this place as fine, if not finer, than I ever saw
it in my life. Indeed I have not seen a bad field of barley since I left
the Wen. The corn is not so forward here as under Portsdown Hill; but
some farmers intend to begin reaping wheat in a few days. It is
monstrous to suppose that the price of corn will not come down. It must
come down, good weather or bad weather. If the weather be bad, it will
be so much the worse for the farmer, as well as for the nation at large,
and can be of no benefit to any human being but the Quakers, who must
now be pretty busy, measuring the crops all over the kingdom. It will be
recollected that in the Report of the Agricultural Committee of 1821, it
appeared, from the evidence of one Hodgson, a partner of Cropper,
Benson, and Co. Quakers, of Liverpool, that these Quakers sent a set of
corn-gaugers into the several counties, just before every harvest; that
these fellows stopped here and there, went into the fields, measured off
square yards of wheat, clipped off the ears, and carried them off. These
they afterwards packed up and sent off to Cropper and Co. at Liverpool.
When the whole of the packets were got together, they were rubbed out,
measured, weighed, and an estimate made of the amount of the coming
crop. This, according to the confession of Hodgson himself, enabled
these Quakers to speculate in corn, with the greater chance of gain.
This has been done by these men for many years. Their disregard of
worldly things; their desire to lay up treasures in heaven; their
implicit yielding to the Spirit; these have induced them to send their
corn-gaugers over the country regularly year after year; and I will
engage that they are at it at this moment. The farmers will bear in mind
that the New Trespass-law, though clearly not intended for any such
purpose, enables them to go and seize by the throat any of these gaugers
that they may catch in their fields. They could not do this formerly; to
cut off standing corn was merely a trespass, for which satisfaction was
to be attained by action at law. But now you can seize the caitiff who
is come as a spy amongst your corn. Before, he could be off and leave
you to find out his name as you could; but now you can lay hold of him,
as Mr. Deller did of the Duke's man, and bring him before a Magistrate
at once. I do hope that the farmers will look sharp out for these
Public-domain text, read in full here on John Shaqi.
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