Memoir of Arthur Young, Esq. 287 



periment, and a knowledge of profit and loss, without the labour 

 or errors of calculation. His writings have thus diflTused through 

 the empire the practices that have been found advantageous 

 in particular places ; and local knowledge has become general 

 science ; thus, for instance, until the publication of his Eastern 

 Tour, how extremely circumscribed were the knowledge and 

 practices of Norfolk husbandry ! In the same tour he explains 

 the Suffolk cultivation of carrots, and points out the value of 

 that root for sustaining the best breed of farm horses in the 

 kingdom — he describes, likewise, the cultivation of cabbages, 

 as practised in Yorkshire — the culture, advantages, and im- 

 mense profits of crops of Lucerne — he places also in a very 

 striking and satisfactory point of view, the unnecessary waste 

 of strength employed in the tillage of the kingdom — he pre- 

 sents to the farming world a notice of the best implements, 

 and, to all this, he adds much practical information on the im- 

 portant subject of a correct course of crops, on which all pre- 

 ceding writers had been silent. I remember, in a conversation 

 with Mr. Young, his stating to me his impression of this being 

 by far the most useful feature of his tours ; and he thought that 

 no circumstance, in all his writings, had produced so beneficial 

 a tendency, as that which had turned the attention of farmers 

 to this very important, but neglected, point. In fine, these 

 popular works may with much truth and justice be said to have 

 formed a new epoch in the agricultural history of Europe, and 

 to have afforded the grand basis of all the improvements that 

 have been made during the last fifty years ; before this period, 

 there was not a publication upon the subject of British agricul- 

 ture, from which we could glean any useful information. If it 

 were necessary to substantiate this assertion, I should remind 

 the reader of a late Lord Chancellor of England, who read 

 every English work that he could procure upon the subject of 

 husbandry; but finding, instead of instruction, nothing but 

 folly and contradiction, he committed them all to the flames. 

 In the execution of these writings, their spirited author has 

 occasionally relieved the monotony of agricultural subjects 

 with anin>at('d descriptions of those objects of elegance and art 



