BATTERSEA PARK SHOW OF THE ROYAL AGRICULTURAL SOCIETY.

New Zealander, Volume XVIII, Issue 1725, 20 September 1862, Page 5

BATTERSEA PARK SHOW OF THE ROYAL AGRICULTURAL SOCIETY.

[From the " Times," June 25.]

Clouds without rain, and the promise of still better weather, have their effect upon the attendance during the early days of the show. Many distinguished visitors made a tour of the implements and machinery yesterday, and to-day the Prince of Wales will honour the first occasion on which the live-stock prizes have been adjudicated in public. Avery large number of free tickets have been applied for by members (and, indeed, this proper privilege of free admission is attracting very many new members into the society); and a numerous company is looked for, in spite of the one-sovereign fee; while, to-morrow, the 55.-day, is sure to fill the green alleys between the sheds with a throng ot visitorsWe noticed some of the machinery yesterday ; but from certain points of view, no object possesses keener and more solid interest than the uupoetical bread-loaf ; and whoever traverses the Royal Agricultural Society's emporium of perfections, with some sense of our national necessities in his mind, will bestow a large measure of his regards not only upon implements which aid the growth of bread-corn, but also upon the samples and specimens of that corn itself, which form a fine feature of the show hard by the entrance portals. Here we inspect the magnifieant collection of specimen wheats, barleys, oats in the straw; of grasses, seeds, roots, &c., of Messrs. Thomas Gibbs and Co., of Half-moon-street, the society's seedsmen ; and the long stall of specimens and samples on a similarly grand and elaborate scale, contributed by Messrs. Lavvson and Sons, of Edinburgh. In this department, which seldom receives that attention from visitors that it really deserves, 11

years have produced a novelty. The curiosity of 1861 w«a Mosgw ttaynbird'a splendid sample ot wheat produced by artificially hybridizing two first-class varieties; the wonder this year is the " pedigre'e' wbeat of MLr. Jtiullett, of Brighton. Taking a prime sort to begin with, by selection year after year, this intelligent cultivator has developed a breed of wheat now possessing an established pedigree —a wheat reproducing vegetable offspring with certain fixed characteristics, just as a pedigree race of cattle or sheep perpetuate their kind with its peculiar form, properties and propensities. It is, in fact, the nature of this wheat now to grow great ears and tremendous yields per acre, while at the same time preserving a hue kernel of beautiful flour. In the showyard at Battersea, as well as in the Eastern Annexe ot the Great Exhibition, are shown the original ears, and specimens of the ears after four years' repeated selection ; the great yields per acre showing that the extraordinary fecundity of individual stems and plants is not obtained at the sacrifice ot growing them thinly on the land. The importance of improved varieties of grain, realized the prolific virtues of Pharoah's seven ears in one stalk, without the thick bran and coarse flinty quality common to the branched or mummy wheat, has not been sufficiently considered ; yet, within the last 15 years, we have spent more than 300,000,000 sterling in imports of foreign corn; the purchase is rapidiv increasing every year, and quickly as grows'our hungry demand, sources ot foreign supply multiply as fast. Little more than 20 years ago the whole of our foreign wheat came from the north of Europe and Germany. As our necessities enlarged, France, Italy, Canada, and the United States came forward with supplies, but the Black Seaports and those of Turkey and Egypt—now such exporters to this country—are scarcely mentioned in the Customhouse returns ol that period. In 1840 London received corn from 185 foreign places of shipment. In 20 years 98 new grain-shipping ports arose, and during the last yeai about GO fresh names have been added to the list And one point not always borne m mind is that this foreign corn is better than our own the advantages of climate enabling the rude tillage ot serfs and ignorant peasantry to produce finer average samples than those ot most scientific En- . glish farmers. By help of the Board of Trade , returns and the price lists of the agricultural journals, it may be shown that for the last 15 years while the average value of English wheat has been somewhat above that of wheats from France, Belgium, the Rhine, and Southern Russia, the price of wheats from the Baltic ports, and from the United States and British North America, has exceeded by e3s. 6d. per quarter the quotations of Kent, Essex, Norfolk, Lincoln, and Yorkshire. While half-settled colonies, with rough husbandry can produce wheat like that from California now at Kensington, a thin-skinned swelling gram 0 exquisite colour, weighing !Blb. while Victoria eclipses all with a wheat weighing 601 b. per bushel, it b hopeless fur farmers m our English climate to strive after a like quant y with the cargoes which all quarters of he world are sending into our ports It is in quant, y reped per acre that we must make progress, . idJ ere lies the immense value of improved cereals winch will seize more vigorously whatever pant-food may be in the soil, and by natural hab, deposit more of the nutriment in the ear, msteadot wasting so much in building up a long bulk) 8t On Thursday and Friday the public display of steam ploughing at **™** a another source of augmented cropping. Meanwhile we shall be n fZlte£ assemblage of English, Scotch, lush, *renui, Sw Z, aim ather foreign stock ; and the public will be du y surprised qy the noble character ot an exhibit n entirely furnished by agriculturists, and by the completeness, order, clever ™™S*™%> and tasteful arrangement which the society trusting its reputation so largely in the hands of She honorary director Air. Brandre.n Glbbs), has carried through every department ol the show It is a matttofeonie anxiety where and how the expected hundred-and-odd thousand persons on the shilling days are to be set down and taken up iuhegatel of the showyard. The river is not on y Jl, smoothest, but the readiest road tor the bulk

Battersea Park pier every ten minutes can hardly land anything like these immense numbers, and the narrow, restricted gangway of the pier is utterly inadequate to the task of dealing with such crowds as we have always encountered at previous meetings of the society. Safety and comfort will be promoted if visitors can be induced to divided their attentions between this and the neighbouring piers.