CROP PROSPECTS IN GREAT BRITAIN.

New Zealand Times, Volume XXX, Issue 4354, 4 March 1875, Page 3

CROP PROSPECTS IN GREAT BRITAIN.

The 'Mark Lane Express speaks hopefully of the crop prospects for 1875 hi Great Britain. It is, of course, far too early in the season to form any definite opinion as to the next harvest; but the month? of November and December appeal - to have been favorable to larmers for ploughing and sowing the seed. No advices of moment have yet reached us from continental Europe, and the crops of I 1 ranee, Hungary, Germany and Russia, regulate the price of grain" at London and Liverpool, more perhaps than do the crops of Great Britain. But, whatever may be the wheat crop prospects for 1875 in Europe, our farmers can do no harm by diversifying their crops as much as possible, and raising something beside wheat. The Mark Lane Express of a recent date notices the scarcity of barley, and its relative price with that of wheat. If says ; A very remarkable change is about to take place in the history of agriculture, consequent on the change in the value of English wheat and barley. This may be partly owing to a deficient crop of barley, but still more to the total inadequacy of other sources of supply. On the other hand, the importations of wheat have been so liberal, and our own crop also so large, that the best red wheat is selling below malting barley—the one being quoted at 48s. and the other at 465. per quarter. Eormerly the relative normal value of barley seldom exceeded two-tbirds that of wheat, and it must have been a bad crop indeed that would bring the two products near- upon a par, or change to any large extent their relative values iu the market. Such, however, are the trauspositions produced by, first, the increase of the population, and, secondly,_ the duty-free importations of all kinds of articles of consumption. Among these the new market prices of wheat and barley are in every respect the most remarkable, when we consider the intrinsic value of each, and that the open market of the whole world furnishes supplies. Such, however, is the scarcity of malting barley that, with all our sources of supply from both the old and new worlds, so great is the increased demand for beer, our brewers are again using enormous amounts of sugar or molasses as the readiest and most economical article offering itself.