PEEFACE. 



I DO not deem it necessary to apologize for this memoir of a 

 farmer's visit to England. Every man in traveling will be 

 directed in peculiar paths of observation by his peculiar tastes, 

 habits, and personal interests, and there will always be a greater 

 or less class who will like to hear of just what he liked to see. 

 With a hearty country appetite for narrative, I have spent, pre- 

 vious to my own journey, a great many long winter evenings in 

 reading the books, so frequently written by our literary tourists, 

 upon England ; and although I do not recollect one of them, the 

 author of which was a farmer, or whose habits of life, professional 

 interests, associations in society, and ordinary standards of com- 

 parison were not altogether different from my own, I remember 

 none from which I did not derive entertainment and instruction. 

 Notwithstanding, therefore, the triteness of the field, I may 

 presume to think, that there will be a great many who will yet 

 enjoy to follow me over it, and this although my gait and carriage 



should not be very elegant, but so only as one farmer's leg and 



(v) 



