VI PREFAOR. 



and neighbour, the late Sir Robert Peel, who, on the 

 system and under the superintendence of Mr. Josiah 

 Parkes, had early deep-drained his Drayton estate. An 

 extant private letter from that eminent statesman to Mr. 

 Gisborne, dated Whitehall, 26th June, 1851, is not only 

 a high testimony to the value of this Essay, but an inte- 

 resting evidence of the earnestness and sagacity of Sir 

 Robert Peel, amidst the distractions of public life, on 

 subjects affecting the progress of agriculture. The follow- 

 ing is an extract : 



" I do not think the article admits of improvement by addition; cer- 

 tainly not by omission. Would it be easy to present engraved plans 

 and sections of the ordinary four-foot Drain for the reception of 1^-inch 

 Pipe; and of the Tools used in making the Drain and laying the Pipes 

 and Collars ? Some people understand such an appeal to their Senses 

 in half the time they comprehend one to their Reason. Many of those 

 who drain extensively neglect to have a plan of the Draining of each 

 field made at the time that the work is done : a hint as to the advantage 

 of this might be advisable." 



Mr. GISBORNE had intended a similar revision and 

 re-publication of the articles on Cattle and Sheep and 

 Ancient Agricultural Literature; but death intervening, 

 they are now reprinted as they originally appeared in 

 the Review, with the addition only of the Tables of 

 Contents. 



The fourth Essay, on High Farming, is a posthumous 

 publication. It was written in 1851-2, and designed for 

 the same channel of publicity. A printed proof of " High 

 Farming " was found in his Study ; but the latter part 

 appears not to have received the Author's final correction, 

 nor had it then been fully approved by the Editor of the 

 Review.* 



Mr. GISBORNE had also meditated a succession of 

 articles on other agricultural topics, which would doubtless 

 have been composed and published, had his life been 

 spared. There is reason to believe that the earliest paper 



* The proof is endorsed by Mr. Gisborne as " corrected," so far as the 

 last paragraph in pages 235-6 of this volume. 



