84 RuTA Baga culture. [Part. I. 



or the country in which the success takes place. I 

 must, however, say, and 1 say it with leehngs of great 

 pleasure, as well as from a sense of justice, that I have 

 observed in the American fanners 710 envy of the kind 

 alluded to ; but, on the country, the greatest satisfac- 

 tion, at my success ; and not the least backwardness, 

 but great forwardness, to applaud and admire my mode 

 of cultivating these crops. Not so, in England, where 

 the farmers (generally the most stupid as well as most 

 slavish and most churlish part of the nation) envy all who 

 excel them, while they are too obstinate to profit from 

 the example of those whom they envy. I say generally; 

 for there are many most honourable exceptions ; and, 

 it is amongst that class of men that I have my dearest 

 and most esteemed friends ; men of knowledge, of ex- 

 perience, of integrity, and of public-spirit, equal to that 

 of the best of Englishmen in the worst times of oppres- 

 sion, 1 would not exchange the friendship of one of 

 these men for that of all the Lords that ever were cre- 

 ated, though there are some of them very able and up- 

 right men, too, 



117. Then, if I may be suffered to digress a little 

 further here, there exists, in England, an institution, 

 which has caused a sort of identity of agricultitre with 

 politics. The Board of Agriculture, estabhshed by 

 Pitt for the purpose of sending spies about the countrv, 

 under the guise of Agricultural surveyors, in order to 

 Jearn the cast of men's politics as well as the taxable 

 capacities of their farms and property; this Board 

 gives no premium or praise to any but " loyal farmers," 

 who are generally the greatest fools. 1, for ray part, 

 have never had any communication with it. It was 

 always an object of ridicule and contempt with me ; 

 but, 1 know this to be the ride of that body, M'hich is, 

 in fact, only a little twig of the vast tree of corruption, 

 which stunts, and blights, and blasts, all that ap- 

 proaches its poisoned purlieu. This Board has for its 

 Secretary, Mr. Arthur Young, a man of great talents, 

 bribed from his good principles by this place of five 

 hundred pounds a year. But Mr. Young, though a 

 most able man, is not always to be trusted. He is a 

 bold asserter ; and very few of his statements proceed 



