GENERAL PREFACE. vii 



had to be grateful to God. These pursuits, in 

 nocent in themselves, instructive in their very 

 nature, and always tending to preserve health, 

 have a constant, a never-failing source, of recre 

 ation to me ; and, which I count amongst the 

 greatest of their benefits and blessings, they have 

 always, in my house, supplied the place of the 

 card-table, the dice-box, the chess-board and 

 the lounging bottle. Time never hangs on the 

 hands of him, who delights in these pursuits, 

 and who has books on the subject to read. 

 Even when shut up within the walls of a prison, 

 for having complained that Englishmen had 

 been flogged in the heart of England under a 

 guard of German Bayonets and Sabres ; even 

 then, I found in these pursuits a source of plea 

 sure inexhaustible. To that of the whole of 

 our English books on these matters, I then ad 

 ded the reading of all the valuable French 

 books ; and I then, for the first time, read that 

 Book of all Books on husbandry, the work of 

 JETHRO TULL, to the principles of whom 1 

 owe more than to all my other reading and all 

 my experience, and of which principles 1 hope 

 to find time to give a sketch, at least, in some 

 future PART of this work. 



