rent for me twenty or thirty rods of I ever received; but it is right that I pretty good ground, in the Bourne, on the should give the bad as well as the good; side of the Bourne towards the town, or but here are eight quarters to the acre. on the flat; to give a good rent for it, and to have it dug up deep, and laid rough, as soon as he can. Standing upon their pristine privileges; like the exemplary mistress of the unfortunate ABE LARD, "Scorning all laws but those by nature made;" From KENT I have received beautiful samples of corn, raised by Mr. Fish, brewer, at Maidstone; and from Tonbridge a very good account from Mr. KIPPING, who says that the crops are large and well ripened, and who sends me some very beautiful samples. In SUSSEX, I skip over Battle and its neighbourhood for the present, and go to Pevensey and its celebrated Level, whence Mr. THOS. PLUMLEY writes to me, that he had destined forty rods of ground for the corn, which he planted in May, one part a little later than the other; that early in June, a flock of forty geese got in, and pulled up all that was out of the ground; so that he was obliged to transplant, and not having plants enough, he fell ten rods short; a part of his ground was planted on the 28th of May; and the plants were not out of the ground when the geese got in. He had therefore but thirty rods of ground in corn; and he says, that he shall have twenty bushels of shelled corn, notwithstanding the injury his crop received. He says that his corn was neither topped nor bladed. He sends me six ears, which he says were taken from the plants planted on the 28th of May, and gathered about the 12th of November; so that this crop was upon the ground from the putting in of the seed to the gathering of the corn, only a hundred and sixty-eight days. Mr. Plum being stronger than I, and seeing the corn to be a good thing, the Bourners may perhaps come and exercise on it le droit du plus fort: in plain English, take it away; at which I shall not repine, if they observe but one condition; namely, not to take it till it be quite ripe! The mode in which I intend to proceed is this: to carry down a bag of corn, and to go to every Bourner that has got a pig or a fowl, show him an ear of the corn, and then toss it down to his pig or his fowl, letting him draw his information in at his eyes. They will all soon hear that I have planted a piece of that corn; and when they see the crop, the business is done, whether they see me take it away in a lump, or whether they themselves take it away in detail. Now, quitting the Bour ners till the spring, I go to Chilworth, in the same county, which lies on the south side of St. Martha's-hill, near Guildford, where Mr. Rowland's son tells me that he gave some of the corn to a labouring man, who brought him, the other day, a sparib, weighing ten pounds and a half, from a hog fatted, as Mr. Rowland un-ley says, at the close of his letter, “I derstood, with the produce of the corn. have had one sack ground; it weighed At Redhill, near Reigate, in the same two hundred and forty-eight pounds, county, Mr. Clarence had twenty rods, which very much surprised me, not thinkwhich produced nine heaped bushels of ing it would weigh so much." The six corn in the ear, and from six to seven ears sent by Mr. Plumley are amongst the bushels of shelled corn; but he says that finest that I ever saw; and one of the a great part of his corn did not ripen; and ears is the very largest and heaviest that that he used part of it in the green state. I ever saw of the Cobbett-corn. Being He is of opinion, and so am I too, that it here, just upon the edge of the water, I will not answer to grow it in considerable will step over to GUERNSEY, whence [ quantities, without the assistance of a have received a box of most beautiful kiln; and that is what I am going to show corn. I thought it exceeded every-thing most clearly before I have concluded this till I saw that of Mr. Plumley; and Mr. paper. As Mr. Clarence says nothing Plumley surpasses it only in one single about the fodder, I suppose he did not ear. Some of my own is, I think, equal think of using the leaves and tops in that to the Guernsey-corn; but not quite equal way; this is the worst account of the corn to the corn of Mr. Plumley. It is truly surprising that this corn never should put to them, and accompanied with the before have been cultivated in Guernsey following letters. and Jersey, though it has for ages and ages been cultivated at Brittany, where it is still cultivated, but in a miserable way. The gentlemen who send me these samples of corn from Guernsey are full of expressions of gratitude for the good that I have done their country. St. John's-street, Chichester, Nov. 21, 1831. "Dear Sir,-With great pleasure I assisted Mr. Gray in the distribution of the Cobbett corn, which you kindly sent to Chichester, in order to be planted last spring. "We now send you some samples of the corn. The ticketed ears are the growth of the respective growers; on which tickets a few remarks are made as to the quantity planted and as to the goodness of crop; the quality ticketed ears are mostly the growth of laof the corn will speak for itself. The unbourers living in different parishes in the neighbourhood of Chichester, who planted patches in their gardens, and who in most instances used a great part of it in its milky state, and the remainder of the corn has since been given to their pigs or poultry, but who in every instance have made a reserve of some of the corn to plant again; regretting they have not more ground to plant it in. Now, Sir, you the coru was planted, it more than realised the may rely on it that in every instance where expectations of the grower; and depend upon it that numbers of others will plant the corn next spring. I aspired to the honour of being your host had you reached Chichester when on your tour from Lewes to the west, an honour which I still hope to have. With sin cere wishes for your health and happiness, "I remain, dear Sir, Your obedient and humble servant, "RICHARD COSINS." Strange thing! The land is the same, the climate the same, that they always were; the corn has existed in the world always; its qualities have always been the same; and yet it never was cultivated even in these southern islands, until I put pen to paper on the subject. If the whole of the Whig Ministry were to live to the age of Methuselah, they would not do so much good in the world as I have done to these little islands alone. If this should reach the eye of any of those gentlemen who have corn to sell, this is to inform them, and everybody else indeed, that Mr. SAPSFORD, corner of Queen-Anne and Wimpole streets, will purchase any quantity at three shillings for a bushel of ears of sound and dry corn. Thus, we have the corn ripening to perfection from the island of Guernsey to Paisley in Scotland! Coming back now to Sussex, I have received, through Mr. GEORGE ROBINSON of Lewes, a sample of very fine corn, growed by JAMES COLLINS of Isfield, which, Mr. ROBINSON tells me, has been very much admired by many farmers and gentlemen. From Lodge farm, in the parish of Worth, Mr. SA-a MUEL BRAZIER sends me a very fine specimen of corn, and also a specimen of Swedish turnips, growed from my seed, one weighing nine and a half pounds and one seven pounds. Endless are the lashes which these letters lay upon the back of "Mr. Cosins has no objection to his name THE LIAR. It would be almost repeti-appearing in print, if you think proper. I think tion to insert the passages describing his baseness; but I cannot help inserting the words of MR. BRAZIER, so truly rustic and apt are they. "I can say nothing "about Hunt, as he holds with the hounds "and runs with the hare!" BRAZIER knows the fellow of old, and he knows Brazier well! From Chichester, in the same county, I have received a great many samples of very fine corn, the ears all ticketed, and the names of the growers "Chichester, Nov. 21, 1831. "Dear Sir,-Immediately on the receipt of your parcel of corn last April, I took the whole to our mutual friend Mr. R. Cosins, who being retired farmer, and having leisure, I thought would do the thing better than I could, to whose annexed account I refer you, which, together with the parcel of corn sent by the bearer, our friend, Mr. Adams, of our town, will be enough to make Hunt blush, if his skin is not too thick. Hunt did not send me one of his circulars. if his letter appears in your publication, it may "Your humbleservant, I now go into HAMPSHIRE, beginning at Portsea, whence I have received, through Mr. BIG WOOD of Queen-street, fifteen samples of very beautiful corn. He executed my request very punctually, and has taken great pains in rendering me an account of the result. His indignation against the LIAR is too great for him to express. One of the samples of corn sent by Mr. Bigwood was accompanied with a letter, which is of so interesting a nature that I cannot refrain from inserting it here. Elm Cottage, near Kingston Cross, Nov. 21, 1831. Alresford, from a Mr. Roberts, who is I believe both a miller and a farmer, I have received a bunch of ears of corn as fine as ever grew from the earth; not quite so large, so long, nor so heavy, as some of mine, as the Guernsey-corn, and as Mr. Plumley's of Pevensey; but certainly rather exceeding all the other samples, except perhaps one which comes from SUFFOLK, in which county all the corn appears to have been exceedingly fine. From Mr. Blount of Up-Husband near "Sir,-This year planted a piece of land with corn in open ground in rows three feet Andover, in the same county, I have a eight inches apart. On the 18th of April, little box of very fine corn. Mr. Blount when the corn came up, I found that some planted twenty-two rods of ground, and had failed. I then transplanted and made he says that he had twenty bushels of good the rows, and seeing they looked wide apart, I planted a row of York cabbage be- prime ears, which is at the rate of eighty tween each row; I cut the cabbage and hoed bushels of shelled corn to the acre, or the corn, and then planted brocoli in the same thereabouts; that this was not half the rows, which is now growing. The ear I have produce, the rest being brought in, stalks sent you is a fair sample, there being from two to three on a stalk, and on some I had and all, and tossed down to the cows, four. Now, Sir, I sowed at the same time a pigs, and poultry. He says that his crop piece of land with barley equal in size to that of corn was plundered by the boys, who the corn was on. The produce of the corn found out that the ears were good to was half as much more in measure and weight eat when green; just, I suppose, as the Disciples did, when they were going up to Jerusalem on the Sabbath-day. This is a sort of instinctive taste, that will require LORD BROUGHAM's“ parish libraries" to correct; for Mr. BRAZIER, of Worth, tells me, that the hop-pickers' girls and boys took a good deal of his corn in the hop-picking time. than the barley. I had a loaf made of half When Here, at Up-Husband, I am within a I cannot sufficiently thank Mr. BIG- few miles of the bunch of little hard paWOOD for the pains he has taken; but he rishes; but I must skip over to BATTLE, is a really" public-spirited man, and re-in Sussex, and come back to the hard quires no thanks; with him to do good parishes again. Always when we are to the country is to do good to himself; thinking about doing good to the country, and that is the case with every man who we, in spite of ourselves, have some parcommunicates with me on this most in- ticular part or parts of it more immeteresting subject. From Lymington, Mr. |diately in our eye than the rest. JOHN TEMPLER writes me, that the corn I first contemplated the gratuitous distrihas succeeded everywhere. I have re-bution of the corn, I had just been in ceived ears from a lady living in the Hampshire, and I had gone from Winneighbourhood of Lymington. Mr. TEM- chester to Bullington, to see and console PLER adds, and "yet Hunt calls the corn the widowed mother of those two excellent "that you gave away a fraud! Why, young men the MASONS. I could not see "what an impudent brazen LIAR the that bunch of parishes without feeling a "fellow must be! And this is the use, desire to do good to the labourers there, "is it, that the fool makes of the power reflecting, as I could not help doing, on "of franking given to him by the people the proceedings of the recent SPECIAL "of Preston!" At Alton, in the same COMMISSION. I promised the widow, county, I saw some as fine corn as I ever that I would return in May, to plant for saw in my life, last summer. From Old her a piece of ground to fat a pig or two, which I afterwards did by Mr. ENOS few have had some ground, and made a loaf DIDDAMS, shoemaker of Sutton Scotney, or two; they like it better than any other who was so kind as to be my agent in the substitute for wheaten flour, and they think it would be a most excellent thing in times of business. Returning home my ideas ex- scarcity. Some of the specimens which I send panded. In getting the parcel ready for have been grown under great disadvantages, Mr. DIDDAMS, it came into my head to being stuck under the shade of a tree, or send a number of ears to be distributed squeezed in between potatoes or beans. Another year we shall see it planted pretty geneby him to labourers in all the parishes rally in the labourers' gardens; they keep a round about. From that came the notion great quantity to distribute to their neigh of sending corn to other persons for dis-bours; next year it will share the ground with tribution; and hence the general spread of the corn over so many counties. But next, after the hard parishes, came into my mind, the little town of Battle, in Sussex, and the good and true and virtuous people of its neighbourhood. Mr. JAMES GUTSELL, at Battle, who is a tailor, with a great deal more sense than one-half of the law-makers that I have ever known, was my agent in the distribution; and he has now sent me samples of corn, ticketed with the following names, which I record to his and their honour. He sends me two ears from each grower.given him time to send or go into all the But I must first insert his letter. "To Mr. Wm. Cobbett. "Battle, Nov. 23, 1831. "Dear Sir,―The ears of Cobbett-Corn which accompany this are the produce of the seed sent by you for distribution. They are not the very best that were grown, but may be taken as an average specimen of the crop in the neighbourhood. In collecting the ears I made it a point to collect also the opinions of the growers, as to its uses and advantages over other grain. There is but one opinion of the advantages which a cultivator of it would obtain in point of production, though there is a difference respecting the probable amount of an average crop. Some think that 100 bushels to the acre would be a fair crop ; others, particularly Messrs. Graw and Gibson, appear confident of a bushel to the rod, that is, with skilful management. The labourers are very proud of it; they hang it up in their windows as an ornament. I have often thought of the "fraud" when I have seen it. I heard yesterday, that Mr. Plumley, of Pevensey, has this year grown 40 bushels on a quarter of an acre; the land there is richer than it is here. I have received some written opinions of some growers, one of which (Mr. Gibson's, schoolmaster) I send you; and I must add, that he is not the only one who thinks it would make good malt; the same thing had been stated to me before by men who are better capable of judging of the matter than I can pre doubt, eventually supplant them, except as a "Your most obedient servant, I shall now insert the names of the growers, observing that some of the tickets not the means of making the collection so appear to be rubbed off. Mr. Gutsell had extensive as he would have done if I had villages; but, short as the time was, the John Archer, shoemaker, Seddlescomb. Mr. Henry Reace, Seddlescomb. tend to be. You ask what use the labourers make of what they get.' They give a little of it to their hogs by way of experiment; and Mr. Gutsell, if he had had time, would they tell me the hogs are crazy for it. A have sent into the parishes more distant collect of the men I gave it to last April. Most selves; as you will see. All the corn has of them put the ticket to their own corn themripened excellently, and most of it was gathered by the 11th of October. I planted about one rod of ground, and I have got nine gallons of shelled corn. Mr. Shrimpton of Down Hurstbourne, planted three rods of liam Hunter, of Longparish, planted about one rod; he is sure that he has quite a bushel or more of shelled corn to the rod of ground. parish, planted seven or eight rods of ground. And a man of the name of Froom, of LongHe sent word to me, he had about one bushel to the rod. He had his corn shelled and ground, and then gave it to his pigs; and so did Hunter, which is the reason I have not sent you an ear or two of corn from them. You will see two ears marked Francis Ray, from Battle, to Burwash, Crowhurst, and all round about. However, through his kindness, through his real goodness and public spirit, here is more good done than would be done in a whole lifetime of the great, gaping, stupid LIAR, if his life were to begin again, and if his in-ground. He has three bushels of corn. Wiltentions were as benevolent in the new life as they have been malignant in this. I shall keep this box of Battle corn, and the box from the hard parishes, to plant next year as seed. Generally speaking, it is not equal, in point of size of ear, to some of the corn that I have mentioned before; but it is all perfectly sound and good. I shall have bags made to hold these samples of corn from the different coun-of Bullington, and Jacob Ray, of Sutton; both ties; and what a convenient thing one of these bags, when a third part full, would be to lay about the head of the great and stupid LIAR! He would take it quietly, I will warrant him. Let him now go and show himself in any of these counties, let him go to that "estate," of which he told the poor Prestonians, the other day, that he had just received the rents!" Is "Charley" PEARSON his receiver I won der? of whom planted about a rod of ground, and You will see some corn there; I hear it ripened well, and indeed in no ears. I now come back to the hard parishes, in the north of Hampshire, to which, as I related before, I sent a parcel of corn to be distributed by Mr. ENOS DIDDAMS, shoemaker, of Sutton Scotney, which is a hamlet, belonging to the parish of Wunston. Mr. DIDDAMS has not had time to collect samples from more than five or six parishes out of perhaps twenty, in which the corn has been growed. I shall insert the list of names, occupations, and parishes, as I did in the case of Battle. But I must first insert Mr. DIDDAMS'S letter. I saw Mr. Diddams's crop in the month of August, I am sure that he had not a rod and a quarter at the utmost; and he has, you see, nine gallons of shelled corn, which is at about the rate Enos Diddams, shoemaker, Sutton Scotney. of twenty quarters to the acre; and I am Thomas Malt, labourer, Bullington. certain that this is to be done upon a whole John Diddams, carpenter, Barton Stacey. field of good land with skilful cultivation. James Croucher, labourer, Sutton Scotney. Thomas Bye, labourer, Stoke Charity. I insert the letter to Mr. Diddams's ho-George Forde, labourer, Bullington. nour, and the list to the honour of those who cultivated the corn. "Sutton Scotney, Nov. 23, 1831. "Sir,-I shall send off a box to-morrow morning with all the ears of your corn I could "I am, Sir, your obedient servant, "ENOS DIDDAMS. "Wm. Cobbett, Esq. London." James Diddams, shoemaker, Barton Stacey: |