612 



FARMERS' REGISTER. 



[No. 10 



very kindly apoloofizee for this not very courteous 

 intrusion on the part of his lordship, by telling us, 

 that Lord Sonimerviile had been inlormed, that it" 

 he did not come forward, some other candidate 

 would be I'ound, or that the board would be abol- 

 ished. No unkindly feeling was generated in the 

 breast of" the ex-president regarding his conduct 

 in the matter, nor was it allowed to interfere with 

 the Ili'Midly intercourse which had formerly sub- 

 sisted between them. 



To the credit and honor of the board, be it re- 

 corded, however, that the first of its acts, under 

 the new president, was the passing of a vote of 

 thanks to the old, for " his great attention to the 

 duties of his office, and for his great zeal to pro- 

 mote the objects of the institution." A public 

 acknowledijment of services thus publicly render- 

 ed, could not fail of being universall}' considered 

 honorable alike to those who bestowed, and to him 

 who received it ; and it must have been soothing 

 to the feelings of Sir John Sinclair, allowing that 

 they might have been soinewhat wounded on the 

 occasion, if added to this general expression of 

 the board, he received from the first Marquis of 

 Lansdowne, fi'om Warren Hastings, and from 

 Bishop Watson, as well as from its treasurer and 

 secretary, letters expressive of their wonder and 

 indignation at the whole proceeding. 



Eight years after this unbecoiiiing and unto- 

 ward transaction, Sir John Shiclair was again in- 

 stalled in the chair, li'om which he should have 

 never been unseated ; and he continued to hold the 

 situation of president of the BoartI of Agriculture 

 till 1813, when the vast expense which its man- 

 agement personally involved, and which had con- 

 siderably impaired his private fortune, obliged him 

 to resign. Lord Macclesfield was president when 

 the board was finally dissolved, and its papers 

 sent to the Tower of London — where they may 

 still be seen heaped together in the Record Office, 

 a huge n)ass of information, which it cost an im- 

 inensity of human labor and research to accumu- 

 late, probably tor ever lost to the world. 



Having mentioned the exertions made by Sir 

 John Sinclair to render the discoveries of Elking- 

 ton of public utility, by having Mr. Johnstone ap- 

 pointed by I lie board to report on his system, as 

 also to obtain the parliamentary grant for that in- 

 dividual, which rendered his old age comfortable, 

 we must not omit those in behoof of Andrew 

 Meikle, the inventor of the thrashing machine — 

 unquestionably the most valuable implement in- 

 troduced into the practice of husbandry during the 

 last hundred years. At the age of ninetj'-two, he 

 was still alive and in great poverty; and it at once 

 occurred to Sir John, that this opprobrium should 

 instantly be removed by the nobility and landed 

 interest, whom his discoveries had so much bene- 

 fited. Mr. Meikle having been born, and still re- 

 siding in East Lothian, he addressed a letter to 

 the Earl of Haddington, as Lord Lieutenant of 

 the county, earnestly recommending the subject 

 to his attention. A general meeting of the pro- 

 prietors and tiirmers was accordingly held on 

 the 26th December 1809, and the measure met 

 with unanimous approbation. The sum of £ 1- 

 500 was thus raised ; and the fiuuily of the un- 

 pretending old mail, whose invention has been of 

 so much benefit to the world, was thus rescued 

 from the necessities which must have otherwise 

 encompassed them lor ever. Sir John had also the 



pleasure of raising a sum of money for the family 

 of Mr. Small, who distinguished himself by his 

 improvement on the construction of the Scotch 

 plough.* 



-^ For tlie Farmer's Register. 



SOME OBSERVATIONS ON CLOSE ROOMS. 



Warffs Fork, Charlotte. 



In a former essay I said something of the in- 

 convenience of dust. I shall here speak of, per- 

 haps, a more disagreeable intruder — impure air. 

 I have often wondered how people could live at 

 all in the air of as close apartments as our cham- 

 bers. The whole faniily is fi-equently seen crowd- 

 ed together in a small room breathing the same 

 air until it will scarcely support the flame of a 

 tallow candle, much less the lamp of life. In 

 such airless holes, lite languishes, health declmes, 

 the mind grows feeble and dispirited, and the com- 

 plexion grows pale and sickly, and the poor ner- 

 vous inhabitant becomes unfit for any part of do- 

 mestic business, or for the social scene : and what 

 is most remarkable, that there is a notion among 

 some folks, who have certainly mistaken the 

 thing, that a florid color is a mark of vulgarity. 

 Look around you, and pray who are the people 

 that carry the most of the ghostly visage and sal- 

 low complexions'? Are they not the half-fed, hall- 

 clothed, and halt-aired inhabitants of clo.se cab- 

 ins, cellar rooms, and factories, and prisons, 

 which are mostly deprived of pure air, which red- 

 dens and invigorates the blood ? How this prison- 

 house complexion ever should have been admired, 

 and thought genteel, I am at a loss to tell. 'Tis 

 true, I have seen some well bred genteel people 

 with this color, who have stewed themselves 

 down to it in close hot rooms, under a notion that 

 it adds to a desirable delicacy, and removes a mas- 

 culine coarseness. But this is certainly a wide 

 mistake. 



Nothing purifies and clears the skin as much as 

 pure air and fresh spring water. Do you wish 

 for a beautiful complexion? Use nature's paint. 

 Do you wish to be sweet ? Take your perfumes 

 froni her dressing box, and washes from her bot- 

 tles. Do you wish to be fair ? Inhale the pure 

 air of the morning. Nothing beside can im[)art 

 the delicate tints. No color has been so much 

 celebrated liy the poets as the clear white and red 

 mincled. The white gotten from close rooms is a 

 dull,'^not a clear white— not a fresh, but a sickly 

 hue — not attracting, but forbidding. The |;erfect 

 complexion is the red of the rose delicately blend- 

 ed with the white of the lilly. This is nature's 

 best painting, and I will venture to say, excludes 

 any idea of vulgarity. Some ladies, strange to 

 tell, atl:er having' procured the pale color by con- 

 finement in close rooms, have been caught wdth 

 artificial paint on their cheeks. This shows the 

 secret prelerence to the rosy cheek. But here 

 a^ain, in this sort of flesh coloring, they miss their 

 object: this is daubing, not painting. Nature is 



* For a very interestinp; biographical account of 

 James Small, and of his improvements in making in- 

 strnments of husbandry, vide General Report of Scot- 

 land, vol. iv. Appendix, p. 352-9. 



