tNTRODUCTION. Xxui 



rate, and provident benevolence of mind, is lefs charafte- 

 riftick of Lnglifh feeling, than the occafional and extraor- 

 dinary. This remark, if well founded, is yet far from dif- 

 couraging; it admits a noble capacity and a noble difpofition, 

 for extraordinary exertion ; and from wliich we may hope 

 for noble, generous, and coniprehenfive improvements. 



The frequent ignorance, and diflbluteaefs of manners, 

 confequent on a precarious income in country villages ; and 

 a neceffary refort of multitudes of young perfons to cities and 

 towns, have been too little the objefts of publick attention. 

 The v/ant of agricultural employments, and other comfort- 

 able inducements to a country life, will always, without a 

 radical improvement in our domefric policy, continue to pro- 

 duce and augment this national infelicity. The dirt and 

 indigence in which numbers of our country cottagers live, 

 forming a mortifying contraft to the allurements of towns 

 and cities, occafion a too common difcontent and difguft in 

 young perfons : — hence their too frequent migration from 

 the diftrids of their nativity — their inticements to depre- 

 dation, proftitution, and the numerous evils of a crowded 

 life. To remedy thefe evils, it is to be lamented that coun- 

 try gentlemen, and other conliderable land-owners, are fo 

 little attentive to rural policy in the improvement of cot- 

 tages, and the annexation of fmall pieces of land, for or- 

 chards and gardens, thereby to allure and fix the mod aftive 

 and ufeful of the peafantry : — An increafe of whofe number, 

 even in the prefent ftate of our agriculture, would often be 

 found of great importance to the feafonable management of 

 our fields — for expeditious fowing, weeding, hoeing, and 

 getting in of all forts of crops. To the general want of 

 hands, for thofe various purpofes, may be attributed much 

 of the flovenly fyftem which prevails in many diftricls, and 



the 



