YOUNG, ARTHUR. 



agriculture, of which his work was to be "the 

 ann 



Arthur Young was the descendant of a re- 

 tpectable family, who had resided on their 

 estate at Bradfield Combust, near Bury St. 

 Edmund's, in the county of Suffolk, for more 

 than two centuries ; he was born in London, 

 on the 7th of September, 1741. His father, the 

 Reverend Arthur Young, rector of Bradfield, ha i 

 three children ; John, and a daughter Elizabeth ; 

 the third was Arthur, the subject of the present 



;r, who was educated at Lavenham, a 

 school about six miles from Bradfield Hall. 



Arthur Young was brought up for mercantile 

 punuits, in a merchant's counting-house at 

 ! where, at the age of 17, he commenced 

 his literary career by writing a political pamph- 

 Irt. entitled Tht Theatre of the present War in 

 flank Amtrica; and then four novels The Fair 

 Jmrriam, Sir Char lei Beaufort, Lucy Watson, and 

 /fa BriMom, or tht Innocent Sufferer. In 1763 

 be returned from the residence of his uncle in 

 London to his mother at Bradfield Hall, with- 

 out any prospect of a pursuit, profession, or 

 employment His whole income, during the 

 life of his mother, arising from a copyhold 

 farm of 20 acres, and producing only as many 

 pounds, she was anxious that he should reside 

 with her} and, as the lease of her farm of 80 

 acres would shortly expire, she urged him to 

 undertake its cultivation, a scheme so much in 

 unison with his taste and wishes, that he did 

 Mtate in accepting her proposal, and 

 be embarked as a farmer. Young, eager, and 

 totally urnorant, as he then was, of every ne- 

 cessary detail, it is not surprising, as he used to 

 .iay. thai be should have squandered large sums, 

 nder golden dreams of improvements, especial- 

 ly as he bad a thirst for experiment, without a 

 knowledge of what is demanded for its success. 

 In Ibis year (1765) he married Miss Martha 

 Alien, of Lynn, and in the year 1767 undertook 

 the management of the farm of Samford Hall, 

 in Essex, which consisted of about 300 acres 

 of land. Various unforeseen circumstances, 

 and embarrassments from the want of capital, 

 soon induced him to give 100/. to a farmer for 

 taking the estate off his hands ; and this far- 

 mer, by the advantages of capital, realized a 



upon it. It was here, uniting the plough 

 with the pen, that he wrote his work entitled, 

 Political Enayt on the Prexnt State of the British 

 Empiri, bat which was not published until 1772, 

 in 1 rol. 4to. He now advertised for another 

 farm, and the knowledge which resulted from 

 viewing the different estates that were on this 

 occasion presented to his notice, furnished him 

 with the materials for his tour, which he called 

 The Sue Wki Tour through the Southern Coun- 

 riet. By the advice of his Suffolk bailiff, he 

 hired a farm of 100 acres in Hertfordshire; 

 and, from viewing it in an uncommonly favour- 

 able season, they were both deceived in the na- 

 ture of the soil. "I know not," said Young, 

 "whal rpithrt to give this soil; sterility falls 



f the idea; a hungry, vitriolic gravel 

 . the jaws of a wolf. A 



nabob's fortune would sink in the attempt to 



nrable crops, upon any extent, in 



such a country : my experience and knovlelge 



:* in m travelling and from prac- 



" 



YOUNG, ARTHUR. 



tice ; but all was lost when exerte 1 upon such 

 a spot. I hardly wonder at a losing account, 

 after fate had fixed me upon land calculated to 

 swallow, without return, all that folly or im- 

 prudence could bestow upon it." It will be 

 here naturally asked, why he did not go to land 

 decisively good 1 ? He answers the question very 

 satisfactorily. " It was on account of the houses; 

 for, although I saw numerous farms that would 

 have suited well, they had wretched hovels on 

 them." 



Finding, about the year 1783, that his in- 

 come was barely sufficient to meet his expen- 

 diture, he engaged to report the parliamentary 

 debates for the Morning Post; this he continued 

 to perform for several years ; and after the la- 

 bours of the week, he walked every Saturday 

 evening to his farm, a distance of 17 miles 

 from London, from which he as regularly re- 

 turned every Monday morning. This was the 

 most anxious and laborious part of his life: '! 

 worked," says he, " more like a coal-heaver, 

 though without his reward, than a man acting 

 only from a predominant impulse." In 1774, 

 he published Political Arithmetic, a work which 

 met with high consideration abroad, and was 

 immediately translated into several languages. 

 Mr. Young has left a memorandum which states 

 that he received for his different writings, in 

 the interval between the years 1766 and 1775 

 the sum of 3000Z. 



In 1784 he commenced the publication of his 

 Annals of Agriculture, in which he appeared in 

 the double capacity of editor and author, a work 

 which he continued to the period of his blind- 

 ness; it extends to 45 vols. 8vo, and presents a 

 vast store of information upon subjects of agri- 

 culture and political economy. The plan upon 

 which it was conducted was one which ought 

 to have ensured for it more extensive and pro- 

 fitable patronage, for, instead of recording ano- 

 nymous correspondence, it refused admittance 

 to any paper that had not the name and address 

 of its author; it can accordingly boast of com- 

 munications from the most exalted and enlight- 

 ened characters in Europe, at the head of whom 

 stands our late most gracious sovereign, who 

 transmitted to Mr. Young for publication an 

 account of the farm of Mr. Ducket, the able 

 cultivator of Petersham, which is recorded in 

 the 7th volume of the Annals, under the signa- 

 ture of "Ralph Robinson." During the pro- 

 gress of this work he travelled (and he pub- 

 lished a popular description of his travels) 

 over most parts of England, into Ireland, and 

 in France. 



In 1793, animated as he always was by the 

 spirit of adventure, he could not resist an op- 

 portunity that occurred for realizing the favour- 

 ite speculation he had so long entertained that 

 of cultivating a large tract of waste land. He 

 accordingly completed the purchase of 4,400 

 acres of waste in Yorkshire. But his fates had 

 decreed other things for him. The Board of 

 Agriculture was established in the August of 

 1793, and he was immediately appointed its 

 secretary. An individual is rarely appointed to 

 an official situation on account of his possess- 

 ing in an eminent degree those qualifications 

 which its duties require ; but in the instance 

 of Mr. Young this was undoubtedly the fact ; 



