[ 201 J 
Advantages of Agricultural Tours. On Gleditsia Tria- 
canthos, or Honey Locust, Hedges. By Wm. Rawle. 
Read August 14th, 1810. 
My dear Sir, 
I wish I could contribute to the stock of the society 
any thing deserving its notice. Mere theories are of 
little use to the public. Facts accurately described and 
well established ought to be laid in, before the work of 
the theorist commences. For these we must, in general, 
depend on a class of men, who, though liberal in collo- 
quial communications, are often unwilling to take up 
the pen. The practical farmer, kind and hospitable to 
his guest, delights to make his own experience and 
labours the subject of conversation ; but the mind un- 
accustomed to literary composition, is as averse to 
throw the same information on paper, as the hand, ren- 
dered rigid by daily employment, is often disinclined to 
the mechanical operation of the pen. The alternative is 
to go to them, for what they will not bring to us. Much 
useful knowledge might be collected, and many new 
and striking matters of fact made public, if agricultural 
tours, so common in England, were sometimes made 
here, with a view to publication. An intelligent man 
who would first begin with our own state, on the more 
important and dest, and perhaps also, (as a contrast) the 
worst cultivated part of it; who would visit the farmer 
at his homestead, closely examine his practice, hear 
his narratives and his reasonings, look into every thing, 
both in gross and in detail, and carefully note down, 
