362 MONTHLY JOURNAL OF AGRICULTURE. 



since, under their auspices, the " Farmers' Series " of their publications was is- 

 sued, embracing the latest improvements — what might be deemed the sum of 

 agricultural knowledge at that ti?ne — and yet already a swp-pl emental volume has 

 just been published at their instance by Professor Johnston, to give more recent 

 discoveries and observations ; and these discoveries and improvements are found 

 to be yet more valuable and important than any Avhich had previously been made 

 known. We mention it only to show how progressive is the course of agricul- 

 tural melioration, and how, as we rise in this pursuit, as in others, in the knowl- 

 edge of discoveries already made, the prospect opens far and wide on all sides, 

 for yet greater ameliorations, to stimulate industry and keep honorable ambition 

 alive. But, introductory to the following letters, let us take room to put to the 

 reader one or two simple questions : Have you children — sons or daughters — 

 who are to live and prosper in the world by the practice of Rural Industry? If 

 yes — are you taking the necessary measures to have them imlued with such knowh 

 edge and such tastes as will invest their every-day life and occupations ivith that 

 interest which can only exist where there is room for amusing investigation, and 

 the hope of profitalle discovery ? Or do you mean that they shall delve on, 

 through a toilsome, monotonous existence, their daily labor being associated in 

 the mind with nothing but the gross amount of the money its produce will com- 

 mand in the market ! If, for yourself and your children, you would give to every 

 object in Nature some power to amuse and to invite intellectual speculation, and 

 banish the ennui that afflicts and depresses the uncultivated mind, and drives its 

 possessor to the rum-shop or the gaming-table, procure for yourself, and throw 

 in their way the researches and experience of active-minded, laborious and phi- 

 lanthropic inquirers into the Natural History of animals and vegetables, the com- 

 position of soils and manures, the philosophy of cheese and butter making, the 

 propagation and food of injurious insects, &c. Get your commission merchant 

 to call on ,the booksellers — any of them will send you, without charge, a cata- 

 logue of his books. Subscribe, too, if you can, to circulating libraries. For a 

 few dollars a year, you may have access to tens of thousands of volumes. Take 

 the agricultural papers, of course. In this journal you will get the creatn of 

 what comes in our way, and we see all that is published in our own and most 

 of that which appears in England and in France. Believe us, agriculturists, there 

 is no occasion to go, for amusement or information, to branches of knowledge 

 alien to your own situation and employments ; for those which are immediately 

 and collaterally connected with them are infinitely various and entertaining ; and 

 if you will give your children a chance to cultivate them, ivhen they are young, 

 and their habits yet being formed, they will go through life without — no, not 

 without, but with one great, unceasing lamentation — lamenting the want of time 

 and faculties to look for and tolearn,more andmore. 



Well, o-ood reader, little did you, and as little did we, expect to be led off upon 

 such a dio-ression, when we took pen in hand merely to express our own, and to 

 bespeak your thanks for the information conveyed in the letters which follow 

 from intelligent and obliging correspondents ; yet we must ask you to bear with 

 us while we transcribe a single passage, met with even since the preceding was 

 written, in the conclusion of the Life of the celebrated circumnavigator, James 

 Cook, who "was born in a mud hut at Maston, in the North Biding of York- 

 shire, 27th October, 1728. His father was an agricultural servant, who, with 

 his wife, bore a most unexceptionable character for honesty and industry." The 

 author of his interesting Biography closes it with some strilcing reflections, 



