RUVA BAG A CULTURE 



indulgence ; but, when it discovers a spirit of envy, it becomes 

 detestable, and especially in affairs of agriculture, where the 

 appeal is made to our common parent, and where no man s success 

 can be injurious to his neighbour, while it must be a benefit to his 

 country, or the country in which the success takes place. I must, 

 however, say, and I say it with feelings of great pleasure, as well 

 as from a sense of justice, that I have observed in the American 

 farmers no envy of the kind alluded to ; but, on the contrary, the 

 greatest satisfaction, at my success ; and not the least backward 

 ness, 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 experience, of 

 integrity, and of public-spirit, equal to that of the best of English 

 men in the worst times of oppression. I would not exchange the 

 friendship of one of these men for that of all the Lords that ever 

 were created, 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 agriculture zvith politics. The Board of Agriculture, 

 established by Pitt for the purpose of sending spies about the 

 country, under the guise of agricultural surveyors, in order to 

 learn 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 &quot; loyal farmers,&quot; who are generally the greatest fools. 

 I, for my part, have never had any communication with it. It was 

 always an object of ridicule and contempt with me ; but, I know 

 this to be the rule of that body, which is, in fact, only a little twig 

 of the vast tree of corruption, which stunts, and blights, and 

 blasts, all that approaches 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 upon actual experiments. And, as 

 to what this Board has published, at the public expense, under the 

 name of Communications, I defy the world to match it as a mass of 

 illiterate, unintelligible, useless trash. The only paper, pub 

 lished by this Board, that I ever thought worth keeping, was an 

 account of the produce from a single cow, communicated by Mr. 

 CRAMP, the jail-keeper of the County of Sussex ; which con 

 tained very interesting and wonderful facts, properly authen 

 ticated, and stated in a clear manner. 



118. ARTHUR YOUNG is blind, and never attends a Board. 



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