On Grass Lays, Manures f ^c. 335 



will slowly enrich the soil, and if cattle are admitted, 

 and not suffered to carry off at night, the greater part 

 of what they have gathered in the day, the same pur- 

 pose will be sooner effected. 



When practices are recommended, without explain- 

 ing the principles on which they are founded, they can 

 do little good, unless the reader's reflection supplies 

 this deficiency ; and when a farmer is in possession of 

 the principles, on which a practice is founded, he may 

 readily determine whether they a; e consonant with the 

 operations of nature, and if he finds them inconsistent 

 with this criterion, they should be rejected ; even if 

 sanctioned by men of talents, and backed by very large 

 crops ; unless he clearlv discovers, that no other a2:en- 

 cy, but that recommended, could have effected the pur- 

 pose : for men of genius are sometimes egregiously 

 mistaken, and crops may be grown to a wonderful ex- 

 tent, under a system of very improper and expensive 

 management, when capital, talents, and attention are 

 employed, in the production of them. 



Agriculture might be highly improved, were farm- 

 ers convinced that a small knowledge and application 

 of arithmetic, is indispensable in the practice of an im- 

 proved husbandry, and that perfection in this art will 

 never be attained, until calculation clearly defines the 

 quantity of seed, and proper depth and distances for 

 sowing and planting. Not only a great increase would 

 certainly follow the introduction of those principles, 

 but random practices would be abandoned, from which 

 certain information can seldom be obtained, or com- 

 municated so as to be clearly understood. Much la- 

 bour would be saved, for when any business is pro- 



