Eulogium on W- iliam West. 155 
could not fail of exciting more remarks than his deviating 
from the common agricultural system of the country, 
had formerly produced.—In the one case, some little 
pride was mortified, at seeing the successful practice of 
a citizen, in the improvement of land by courses which 
were so opposite to what farmers thought could not be 
altered for the better, or the adoption of measures which 
had either never reached their ears, or were slighted, 
from prejudice, or neglected from want of industry ; in 
the other, the more feeling principle of interest operated 
to the production of remark, and to a gradual change of » 
their agricultural operations. This change he lived to 
see effected, not only in his immediate neighbourhood, 
but in more remote places, and to behold farms, nay 
whole districts, brought from a state of poverty to a de- 
' gree of high cultivation, by following the example he 
had long before set. 
We are too apt to estimate the value of improve- 
ments, in a degree disproportionate to their value, when 
the theory that explains their success, or the practice 
of them has become familiar to us. We wonder that 
what is so easily accomplished, and is so simple, should 
have been so long concealed from us, or have been so 
recently adopted, and this remark will apply with par- 
ticular force to the present occasion. The practice of 
producing a fine sward upon upland farms, by the ap- 
plication of manure to the surface, now appears so sim- 
ple that it strikes us with astonishment, the thought did 
not occur to others at a more early period; but this 
wonder will cease when it is known that even to this day 
in many parts of the country, the benefit of it remains 
yet to be discovered. Men who believe the system of 
