Amateur Farming. 333 



thorough knowledge. Since Young's times, no doubt the com- 

 bination of the scholar and the practical man in one individual 

 has lost the charm of rarity, and the mob listens every da}^ to 

 orators who pour forth in the most polished rhetoric all the 

 vernacular and technical expressions peculiar to the factories 

 and workshops of its own particular locality. It is however 

 doubtful if the frequency of this gift has in any degree 

 lessened its influence on the vulgar mind. 



On an emergency, Young had at his disposal more rough 

 and ready methods of persuasion than a polished manner and 

 elegant language. If he wanted to pick the dull brain of 

 some uncommunicative rustic he dropped the fine gentleman 

 and became the boon companion. During his northern tour, 

 he naively confesses, " I was forced to make more than one 

 honest farmer half drunk before I could get sober unprejudiced 

 intelligence." 



Mr. "Wren Hoskyns, though he speaks in high praise of 

 the Farmers^ Letters^ Agricultural Tours and Calendar^ adding 

 that Young displayed the mind and pen of a master in his 

 art, and went far towards laying the foundation of a practical 

 agricultural literature, accuses him of sharing the prejudices 

 of the day, because he argued in favour of the corn bounties 

 and depreciated science. When his writings are examined in 

 detail it is found that he was attracted, naturally enough, 

 towards the agriculturist school of political economy. The 

 impressionable period of his life coincided with that crisis in 

 philosophical thought when authorities were exposing the 

 errors of Colbert, and revolting against the theories of the 

 mercantilists. Scholars, disposed to impartiahty by education 

 and profession, were daily becoming as much prejudiced in 

 favour of the agricultural theories as Young himself. In the 

 centres of physiocratic thought the new doctrines would be 

 irresistible, and this East- Anglian agriculturist had, during 

 his French travels, come almost into as close contact with the 

 Quesnai school as Adam Smith had done. If the latter, shrewd 

 philosophical and unbiassed as he was, became permanently 



* Mortuti's CyclopcetUa of AgricaUure. Int. Essay. W. Hoskyns. 



