xii EXTRACT FROM PREFACE TO THIRD EDITION 



EXTRACT FROM THE PREFACE TO THE 

 THIRD EDITION 



JWORLIDGE, in the Proemium to his Systema Agri- 

 culture?, 1681, says: "This is an Age wherein to 

 commend or extol an Ingenious Art or Science might be 

 esteemed a Needless Labour, especially in a Country so 

 highly improved in everything ; but that we find the more 

 Noble, Advantagious, Useful, or Necessary, any Art, 

 Science, or Profession is, the stronger Arguments are framed 

 against it ; and more particularly against the Rustick Art 

 and its infinite Preheminences and Oblectations, by the 

 vainer and more pedant sort of persons despising the worth 

 or value of what they are ignorant of, who judge it below 

 their honour or reputation to take any notice of so mean 

 a profession ; that esteem the Country no other than a place 

 for Beasts as Cities for men." 



History repeats itself, and after the lapse of more than 

 two hundred years we find still prevailing the same spirit of 

 antipathy to Agriculture so quaintly described by Worlidge. 

 It is a misfortune, though perhaps more for humanity than for 

 Agriculture, that men who have received a liberal education, 

 in the ordinary acceptation of the term, in science, literature, 

 and philosophy, so frequently when referring to Agriculture 

 assume the role of " the vain and more pedant sort of persons, 

 despising the worth or value of what they are ignorant of." 

 By some it is denied that Agriculture is an art, although 

 of all arts it is undeniably the oldest and the most widely 

 distributed, as well as the most important, the most indis- 

 pensable, the most interesting, and the most elevating. 

 With another school of philosophers it is not a science, though 

 in each of its varied and numerous branches it involves 

 the most complicated scientific processes. Agriculture can 

 afford to smile at such pedantry, and excuse it on the plea 

 of ignorance. She has also the consolation of knowing that, 

 in spite of the modern philosopher's ingratitude to, and want 

 of appreciation of, Agriculture (in which he contrasts unfavour- 

 ably with his prototype of Egypt, Carthage, or Rome), yet 



