Part 5

In the case of wheat, and particularly of the finer varieties, the losses arising from bad harvest-weather tell very materially on the prices. Of the same crop of fine white wheat grown in 1877 under similar conditions, the part harvested in good weather yielded per acre forty bushels, each weighing sixty-six pounds; while the part which could not be harvested before being damaged by rain yielded an equal number of bushels; but the weight of each bushel was decreased by five pounds, and this latter was sold at two-and-sixpence per bushel lower than the former. Besides this, if ungenial weather should prevent the farmer sowing his wheat in good time, the yield is still further lessened, if indeed he does not deem it expedient to sow barley instead.

One would think that oats—the hardiest of our cereals—would suffer little from the effects of bad weather; but in a case in which two portions of oats grown under similar conditions were examined, it was found that the portion harvested in good weather produced thirty-three bushels, each weighing forty-one and a half pounds; while that stacked after some rain had fallen was found to give thirty-two bushels, weighing thirty-nine and a half pounds each.

RUSSIAN LONGEVITY.

From a correspondent, who has passed some years in Russia, we learn that in the village of Velkotti, in the St Petersburg government, an old woman is living who has just attained her one hundred and thirtieth birthday! The old lady is in the enjoyment of good health, but complains of her deafness (and no wonder). Her hair is still long and plentiful, considering her age. She spent her youth in great poverty, but is now pretty well off. She has outlived three husbands; and has had a family of nineteen children, all of whom have been married, and are now dead, the last one to die being a daughter of ninety-three. She lives with one of her great-grandchildren, a man of fifty.

Our correspondent also informs us that a few months ago an unusually curious wedding took place in Ekaterinoslav, in Russia. The bridegroom was sixty-five years old, the bride sixty-seven. By former marriages, each of them have children and grandchildren, and even great-grandchildren, living in the same town. The bridegroom’s father, now in his one hundred and third year, and the bride’s mother, in her ninety-sixth year, are still alive, and were at the wedding.

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