THE SCIENTIFIC SPIRIT IN ENGLAND. 



285 



stimulated active exercise and outdoor sport; the abun- 

 dant rains, which fed the many rivulets with a constant 

 supply of fresh water, suggested the cultivation of that 

 pastime of which Isaac Walton had left a classical de- 

 scription, long before Kousseau in France made the love 

 of nature a fashionable sentiment. Lord Bacon pointed 

 to the study of natural phenomena as the only source 

 of knowledge. Evelyn wrote a treatise on forest-trees, 

 and the old-fashioned English flower-garden is immor- 

 talised in Bacon's ' Essays/ in the " Winter's Tale/' in 

 Cowper's " Task," and in the works of many other poets. 

 Through the literature of the eighteenth century there 

 runs a vein of increasing love and knowledge of natural 

 objects and natural scenery, beginning in Thomson and 

 Gray, widening and deepening in Erasmus Darwin and 

 Cowper, and attaining full vigour and originality in 

 Burns and Wordsworth, as also in the school of English 

 landscape-painting. William and Caroline Herschel corn- 



Next came the Bath and West of 

 England Society, 1777 ; the High- 

 land Society, 1784 ; and the Na- 

 tional Board of Agriculture, 1793. 

 The ' Farmer's Magazine ' was started 

 in 1800. _ About the same time 

 that Lawes and Gilbert in England 

 and Liebig in Germany gave such 

 an impetus to scientific farming 

 through their experiments and pub- 

 lications, " Mr John Finnic at Swan- 

 ston, near Edinburgh, having sug- 

 gested (1842) to some of his neigh- 

 bours the desirableness of obtaining 

 the aid of chemistry to guide far- 

 mers in many departments of their 

 business, the hint was promptly 

 acted upon, and these Mid-Lothian 

 tenant-farmers had the merit of 

 originating an Agricultural Chem- 

 istry Association (the first of its 



kind), by which funds were raised, 

 and an eminent chemist engaged " 

 ('Ency. Brit.,' article "Agricul- 

 ture," vol. i. p. 305). There is pro- 

 bably no country where farming is 

 such a favourite pursuit of gentle- 

 men of leisure and wealth as Great 

 Britain, or where the intelligence 

 of higher society and of the univer- 

 sities is so liberally transferred to 

 the benefit of the country, of its 

 population, its crops and its live- 

 stock. Among many examples of 

 the past and present I mention as 

 an outcome of this spirit the little 

 volume by Sir Thomas Dyke Ac- 

 land, ' On the Chemistry of Farm- 

 ing ' (London: Simpkin & Co., 

 1891), and his liberal patronage of 

 agriculture in the west of England. 



