XVI INTRODUCTION. 
Some particular diftricts of the nation have acquired a 
well-deferved chara‘ter for general farming excellence, in- 
cluding the very important article of cleanlinefs over all their 
ground; but /lovens in agriculture are found every where—in 
many counties they abound ; and the publick lofs is enormous. 
But in proportion to the extent of it we may derive hopes 
of a future growing provifion, under a gradually-improving 
fyftem, excited by a vigilant attention, on the part of land- 
owners, to the {kill and proper induftry of their tenants. 
From this laft fource of improvement aloe, can any great 
national advantages be expected. 
In addition to the complaint of flovenly farming, two 
grievances, or fuppofed grievances, are ftill frequently men- 
tioned at thefe rooms—the too common converfion of con- 
tiguous fmall farms into large ones, and the immoderate 
raifing of rents; both thefe evils, fo far- as they exift, are 
among the effects of a proper free-agency in the owners of 
lands, which no friend to general liberty can wifh to fee 
extinguifhed. But to haften a correction of an evil, by fair 
and benevolent arguments, addreffed to the heart and the 
underftanding, is a duty which men in fociety owe to each 
other, and to the caufe of wifdom and truth. 
In general the rife of rents has been.confidered by the 
owners as a ftimulus to induftry:—in many inftances it has 
doubtlefs been found fo; and the experiment has anfwered, 
without a national difadvantage. In others, the too high 
rent, wheh found by experience to be infupportable, has 
operated as an inducement to tenants to become defperate, 
and under a fhort leafe, or none at all, to draw out the vir- 
tue of the foil by immoderate cropping, and then leave it to 
the confequent lofs and great embarraffment of the owner; 
or, under long leafes, to do the fame thing, in order, by 
inducing a compromife, to get exonerated from their burden. 
Such 
