INTRODUCTION 



Bonus agricolUj bonus civis. 



If to be a successful writer on farming a man must be a success- 

 ful farmer, the qualifications of Arthur Young for his life's 

 work were small indeed. His education, the habits and train- 

 ing of his youth, contained the promise of any career rather 

 than that which exalted the ruined, almost destitute tenant of 

 half a dozen farms to the loftiest temple of fame, holding an 

 unchallenged authority on the theory and practice of farming; 

 an oracle at whose feet sat the rulers of the nations of the 

 old world and the new — kings and princes, great lords and 

 commoners, statesmen and philosophers, economists and 

 philanthropists — drinking in his words as the last pronounce- 

 ments on the science of agriculture. But whatever practical 

 knowledge Young failed to acquire, he succeeded in becoming a 

 master of the English tongue. Early in life the Muses mnrked 

 him for their own; those wayward sisters whose fairy gifts 

 are so bitter-sweet had touched his lips, and in the solitude of 

 his little chamber at Lavenham grammar school we find him 

 at ten years of age surrounded with a choice collection of books, 

 already employed in writing a history of England. 



Felicitous were the circumstances of his parentage and 

 dwelling-place. 1 Although by a curious coincidence his birth 

 and death (1741-1820) took place in London, Arthur Young 

 was the scion of an old county family. His father, rector of 

 Bradfield, chaplain to the House of Commons, and Prebendary 

 of Canterbur\' Cathedral, was a ripe scholar and a well-knoAvn 

 author: his mother, daughter of a wealthy Netherlander, John 

 de Coussmaker, who came over with Duke William in 1689, was 

 a lady of rare accomplishments, many graces, and determined 

 will. Characteristic of her are two incidents: the father 

 having refused to allow Arthur to be inoculated with small-pox, 

 Mrs. Young took advantage of her lord's absence in London 

 to have the operation performed ; and, in a like case of conflict 

 of wills, when the rector opposed her suggestion of having the 

 family pew in the church at Bradfield renewed, she promptly 

 had a new pew and a new reading desk erected. 



* The chief authorities for Young's life are his diary and letters, edited 

 by Miss Betham-Edwards (Autobiography of Arthur Young, London, 

 1898), and various autobiographical sketches in the Annals of Agriculture. 

 See especially vol. xv. pp. 152 et seq. 



vii 



