Karl Marx 
The Crops in Europe 

New-York Daily Tribune. 
Nr. 6043, 6. September 1860 

The Crops in Europe. 

Correspondence of The N.Y. Tribune. 
London, August 21, 1860. 

The more the season advances the gloomier become the harvest prospects 
and the fainter grow the hopes still founded on a possible return of fine 
weather. The character of the past Summer was altogether exceptional, not 
only throughout the United Kingdom, but over the whole of Northern 
Europe, Northern France, Belgium, and the Rhenish Provinces included. In 
regard to this country the season has been justly described in these words: 
"After the cold, backward Spring, June proved so extremely wet that in 
many districts turnips could not be sown, mangelwurzel hoed, nor any of 
the usual operations of the period performed. Then, after about ten days of 
fine weather, the season became so unsettled that two days together without 
rain have been rather a surprise. But, in addition to the excess of moisture, 
the present, we may say the past Summer, has been remarkable for the 
absence of sunshine and the very low temperature which have prevailed even 
when there has been no rain." 
The average fall of rain for the year being about 20 inches, and the fall 
of rain during the months of May and June having reached the figure of 11.17, 
it appears that these two months have given over half a year's supply of 
water. During the last week, at the commencement of which a favorable 
change seemed impending, the weather proved more unsettled and 
boisterous than ever, real deluges of rain being, on the 16th and 18th inst, 
accompanied by thunder-storms and the tempests of the south-west wind. 
Consequently the wheat prices at Mark Lane advanced yesterday abouttwo 
shillings the quarter over the rates of last Monday's market. 

Karl Marx 

Hay-making has been already seriously interfered with and belated by the 
incessant wind, rain, and cold. The grass having been laid and constantly 
saturated with water, it is feared that much of its nutritive substance has been 
washed away, so that a great part of it will not do for fodder, but must be 
used for litter, and will thus prove avery serious loss, greatly increasing the 
consumption of Spring corn. Much of it is still to be gathered, and much is 
irretrievably lost. 

"There can be little doubt," says The Gardeners' Chronicle of Saturday 
last, "that the wheat crop generally is considerably injured. Of 140 reports 
received from as many correspondents in England and Scotland, no fewer 
than 93 declare the crop to be below the average, and if the chief wheat- 
growing districts be selected, it will be found that the proportion of un- 
favorable returns is quite as large. Thus, five out of six reports from Lin- 
colnshire, three out of five from Norfolk and Suffolk, and all from the 
counties of Oxford, Gloucestershire, Wilts, Hants, and Kent, are un- 
favorable." A great deal of the wheat crop has rotted at the root before the 
grain was mature, and in many districts it has been blighted and mildewed. 
While wheat is thus attacked by the disease, and in many districts to a large 
extent, the potato disease, which commenced in 1845, continued with great 
virulence for the four subsequent years, and gradually abated since 1850, has 
reappeared in an aggravated form, not only in Ireland, but in many districts 
of England and the Northern Continent. 

The Freeman's Journal thus resumes the general harvest prospects of 
Ireland: "The oat crop is generally looked upon as all but lost. Except ina 
few inconsiderable districts, it has not yet ripened; but remains perfectly 
green, and beaten to the ground by the violence of the weather. Wheat 
promises to share in the calamity which generally threatens the grain crops. 
Little of it has been yet cut, and this crop, the condition of which inspired 
the most sanguine expectations only a few weeks since, is now causing 
farmers the deepest concern. With regard to the potato crop, the general 
opinion is, that if the present weather continues for another month, it must 
be inevitably lost." According to The Wexford Independent, “the potato 
disease is progressing, and in some places fully one-third of the produce is 
found affected, irrespective alike of size and description, and in proportion 
to the time of planting." 

This much appears, therefore, certain: The general harvest will be much 
belated beyond its usual term, and the existing stores consequently be run 
short. The partial failure of hay, coupled with the potato disease, will press 
to an unwonted extent upon the cereals; and the yield of all sorts of corn, 
especially wheat, will fall far below the average. Till now, the imports from 
abroad, instead of showing an excess over the imports during the years 1858 

The Crops in Europe 

and 1859, exhibit, on the contrary, a marked comparative decline. On the 
other hand, corn prices, although, on an average they rule now 26 per cent 
higher than at the same period of last year, have as yet been kept down by 
the news of the plentiful harvests in America and Southern Russia, by the 
hope of a favorable turn in the weather, and by the extreme caution the late 
collapse in the leather trade had imposed upon all monetary transactions. 
The conclusion to which I am led by a comparison of the present prices with 
those of similar seasons since 1815, is, that the average price of wheat, which 
may be taken now to amount to 58s.-59s. the quarter, will have to rise, in 
England at least, to 65s.-70s. The effect of such a rise in the price of 
breadstuff will be considerably aggravated by its coincidence with a pro- 
gressive decline in the export trade of the country. From £63,003,159, which 
sum they realized during the six months ending June 30,1859, the British 
exports have sunk to £62,019,989 during the corresponding period of 1860, 
and, as I have shown in a former letter, the contraction was mainly due to 
a decline in the sale of cotton goods and yarns, consequent upon the markets 
of Asia and Australia having been glutted. While the exports are thus falling 
off, the imports have considerably risen, if compared with the corresponding 
period of 1859. We find, in fact, the imports for the five months ending 
May 31, 1859, £44,968,863; 1860, £57,097,638. 

This excess of imports over exports must necessarily aggravate the drain 
of bullion and the consequent unsettled state of the money market which 
characterizes all periods of failing harvests, and extraordinary purchases of 
foreign corn. If, in England, the effect of the imminent monetary pressure 
is not likely to stretch far beyond the sphere of political economy, it is quite 
another thing on the Continent, where serious political disturbances are 
almost unavoidable whenever a monetary crisis coincides with a failing 
harvest and a great increase of taxation. Already the most serious 
apprehensions are entertained at Paris, where the magistrate is just busied 

with buying up whole lots of old houses, in order to have them pulled down, 
and thus cutout work for the "ouvriers. "The Paris prices of best wheat range 
at this moment as high, if not somewhat higher than the London prices, 
namely at 60/6 to 61/. The last dodges by which Louis Bonaparte tried to 
divert the public mind, viz.: the Syrian expedition, the advancement of Spain 
to a "great power," the transactions with Prussia, and the attempts at inter- 
ference with Garibaldi's progress, having all turned out dead failures, he must 
needs meet the dangers of a bad season, a monetary pressure and a stinted 
exchequer at the very moment when his political "prestige" is evidently at 
a considerable discount. If any proof for the latter assertion were wanted, 
is there not his letter to "Mon cher Persigny'"i