On Agricultural Tours, &c. 293 
and, with ‘proper assistance, might perhaps (to speak 
modestly) in time equal the improvements of our elder 
brethren. If the rest of the world possessed no other 
account of the agriculture of England, than what has 
been observed and published by foreign travellers 
among them, our information would be imperfect in- 
deed.—It is wonderful that the benefits of the press, 
that rapid, cheap, and easy mode of communication, 
which brings distant nations to each other, and famili- 
arizes one half of-the globe with the daily events and 
domestic transactions of the other, should have been 
neglected by ourselves on this important subject. Slow, 
imperfect, and uncertain, as-verbal communication is, it 
is as yet almost the only means of information; and 
while we know distinctly and fully, by taking upa 
book, the course of husbandry in Norfolk, Sussex, and 
Lancashire, we cannot I believe, beyond a few scattered 
instances, find a single printed memorial of the course 
of husbandry of a state in the union. Like our tawney 
predecessors, we must depend on “‘the tales of our old 
men,” or the accidental arrival of an inhabitant from the 
place, before we can acquire the knowledge we want. 
This is withholding the facility acquired by the art of 
printing, from that art; which, as it is the most neces- 
sary, must be admitted to be the most important to 
man. 3 
Let me then venture to suggest, that as soon as a 
sufficient fund can be raised, and a suitable person 
found, an agricultural tour should. be set on foot under 
- directions of the society ; beginning in one of these 
counties, such as Lancaster or Berks, in which the ope- 
rations of agriculture have hitherto been carried on with 
