'■l$04- Revieiv of Him's io Agviadturijis. fl-V^ 



iias fludlcd, and which he undcrdands, ahhough he (liould be 

 found to make a very forry figure in ralhly attempting another, in 

 which he is not in the leafl converlant. Otherwife, were we to 

 judge of the quahfications of the antiquarian of Nottingham, by 

 that flendernefs of capacity difplayed in liis Hints to Agriculturijlsy 

 wc would forely fear that his Antiquities would fpeediiy become 

 antiquated, and iremain a dead itock upon his hand. The truth 

 is, the out-of-door operations of agriculture can contain no fe- 

 crets or myjlery^ Hke thofe of manufadiure ; and every one (par- 

 ticularly in proportion to the fuperficiality of his knowledge) deems 

 himfelf capable to judge of, or vrnte upon what, he imagines, 

 he fees pradlifed daily under his nofe. From the lefs frequency, 

 too, of focial intercourfe which agricultural operations can ad- 

 mit of — from the difperfed (late of iituation in which they mull 

 aiecellarily be carried on, arifes a want of fluency in converfa- 

 tion among agricultural practitioners, which is apt to be attri- 

 buted, mofb fallacioufly, to a greater hebetude of intellefts ; 

 'fo that every pert, glib-tongued fhopkeeper, holds himfelf qua- 

 •iified to give the leifons of a mailer to the more awkward clod- 

 like farmer, even as to the bufmefs of his own peculiar pro- 

 fefTion, Hence the numberless, annual donations of moil fige ad- 

 vice to practical farmers, moll charitably and gratuitouily com- 

 municated in our newfpapers, by fuch town cits as have chancedi 

 to have been traverfmg the country. Whether the author of the 

 Hints may fall under the above defcription, or whether (if he 

 really pofTelles the experience he would Ibmetimes lay claim to) 

 he may not have been merely an ^xpenmefiter in Jloiuer-potSy of 

 which kind of experiments he has recorded a few— thefe arc points, 

 upon which, though we might conjeclure, we are not in a flate 

 competent to decide. Certain, however, we are, that no farmer, 

 who reads thefe Hiiits^ fliall find from the lediure, that one fm- 

 •gle hint has been given by which he ihall be able to profit in any 

 iirape. 



The author fcts out with declaring himfelf both an antltheoriil 

 and a theoriil. He condemns theoriits as proceedhig upon clie- 

 i-nical or mechanical principles which -the pradlicai farmer cannot 

 underlland. Me equally condemns thofe who merely detail prac- 

 tices without any appropriate theory, as leading to empiricifm in 

 agriculture, i. e. to practice without principles, or the indlfcri- 

 minate application of fpccific noJ}ruiKs to ail cafes equally with- 

 out diftinction. 



* Science is grateful to the mind of every maji, and la never rejefted 

 ;but where the real or fuppofed difficulties of obtaining It, deter him 

 Srom the attempj. We have many works of genius and nn>erlt, of la- 



O 3 boiir 



