r 207 ] 



Survey of Bucks, p. 60. 



Tithes are every where confidered as a leading 

 obflacle to improvemexits in Agriculture; and altho* 

 there are very few inflances, indeed, in this county, 

 where any pointed difference has arifen between the 

 clergyman and his pariftiioners, yet as that only 

 proves the force of cuflom and local circumftances, 

 it does not in the leaf!: take away from the eflabliflied 

 truth of tithes being a great grievance in the hands 

 of lay impropriators. On the contrary, daily expe- 

 rience fliews us that commuting of tithes, even at a 

 very advanced price, is feldom acceded to by lay- 

 men ; and the difficulty, not to fay unreafonablenefs, 

 of paying for every improvement in kind, is attended 

 with great perfonal inconvenience, and confiderable 

 publick lofs. 



The farmer who goes on the old beaten track of 

 his anceflors, pays but a very fmall proportion, com- 

 pared to the man who aims at improvement; to 

 obtain which, he is neceifarily at greater expence, 

 and if his produce be proportionate to his expence, 

 in the fame ratio does the burthen of tithes increafe 

 alfo: this is a mofl vexatious grievance, and in no 

 other indance whatever is there a parallel circum- 

 ftance. 



Is the ingenuity of the mechanick (be it in what 

 line it may) fubjeft to fuch oppreffion, at lead in fuch 

 a degree, as to deprive him of a confiderable part of 



the 



