1228 STATISTICS OF AGRICULTURE. Vakx IV. 



The miners at Leadhills have a regular library and reading society ; and the worlds they make choice of 

 are not only histories, voyages, travels, &c. but even works of taste, such as the British classics, and best 

 novels and romances. I'he degree to which knowledge will prevail among any class of labouring men 

 will depend jointly on their own ambition, on the demand for knowledge, or tlie reputation in which it is 

 held, and on the opportunities of acquiring it. A dull, stupid person, with little native activity, will never 

 desire to know more than what enables him to supply the ordinary wants of life ; but where tlie workmen 

 of any art are required to have technical knowledge of any particular kind, they will be found invariably 

 to possess it. Thus carpenters and masons require some knowledge of the mechanical principles of archi- 

 tecture, and working engineers of the strength of materials; and these kinds of knowledge are acquired 

 by them without an hour's interruption of their daily labour : on the contrary, the habit of evening study 

 renders them more steady, sober, and industrious than other workmen : than bricklayers and paper- 

 hangers, for example, whose employments require much less intellectual skill. If every cook-maid, 

 before she could obtain a first-rate place, were required to be able to read Apictus in the original 

 tongue, there would be no want of learned cooks ; and if no bailiff' could obtain a first-rate situation who 

 had not written a thesis in Greek, or who had not made the tour of Europe, there would soon be found 

 abundance of bailiffs so qualified. A Caledonian, when ho comes to tiie low country, soon acquires the 

 English tongue, and, if he has been taught Latin, thus knows three languages. The servants at the inns 

 on some parts of the Continent, frequented by different nations, often acquire a moderate knowledge of 

 three or four languages : a late custom-house otKcer on the island of Cronstadt spoke and wrote ten lan- 

 guages ; and the bar-maid at the hotel de Londres, at which we lodged in Moscow, in 1814, could make 

 herself intelligible in Swedish, Russian, Polish, German, French, Italian, and English. 



7941. The certain voay of obtaining any thing is to be impressed with the necessity of possessing it, 

 cither to avoid the evil of being without it ; or to satisfy the desires of others as to ourselves; or our own 

 desires. There is scarcely any tiling a rational man can desire that he may not obtain, by maintaining on 

 his mind a powerful impression of the necessity of obtaining it ; pursuing the means of attainment with 

 unceasing perseverance, and keeping alive that entimsiasm and ardour which always accom])any powerful 

 desires. All may not acquire, by the same degree of labour, the same degree of eminence ; but any man, 

 b;y labour, may attain a knowletlge of all that is already known on any subject, and that degree of "know- 

 ledge is respectable ; what many never attain to, and what few go beyond. 



' 'TO42. The grand drawback to every kind of improvement is, the vulgar and degrading idea that certain 

 things are beyond our reach ; whereas the truth is, every thing isattainable by the employment of means ; 

 and nothing, not even the knowledge of a common labourer, without it : there are many things, which it 

 is not desirable to wish for, and which are only desired by men of extraordinary minds ; but let no man 

 fancy any thing is impossible to him, for this is the bane of all improvement. Let no young plough- 

 man, therefore, who reads this, even if he can but barely read, imagine that he may not become eminent 

 in any of the pursuits of life or departments of knowledge, much less in those of his profession : let him 

 never lose sight of this principle that to desire and apply is to attain, and that the attainment will be in 

 proportion to the application. 



jj Sect. II. Professional Education of Agricultunsls. 



;'794S. In order that a professional man should excel as such, every other acquirement must be kept sub- 

 servient to that of his profession. No branch of knowledge should be pursued to any extent that, either/ 

 of itself, or by the habits of thinking to which it gives rise, tends to divert the mind from the main object 

 of pursuit; something, it is trqe, is due to relaxation in every species of acquirement ; but judicious- 

 relaxation only serves to whet the appetite for the vigorous pursuit of the main object. By the pro- 

 fessional education of agriculturists, we mean that direction of their faculties by which they will 

 best acquire the science and manual operations of agriculture, and we shall suppose agricultural 

 pupils generally to have no other scholastic education than some knowledge of reading, writing-, and- 

 arithmetic. 



I^ii. All young men iv/io intend embracing agriculture as a profession, whether as ploughmen, bailiffs, 

 stewards, land-valuers,, or rent-paying farmers, ought to undergo a course of manual labour for one year 

 or more, in order to acquire the mechanism of all agricultural operations. When the pupil is not 

 destined for any particular county, then he should be sent to a farmer in a district of mixed agriculture ; 

 as, for example. East Lothian, where he would, if placed in a wheat and bean culture farm, see at no great 

 distance the turnip system and feeding, and a few miles off, the mountain sheep-farming or breeding :. 

 when the pupil is intended to be settled in any particular county, he ought to be sent to a county as near 

 as possible of similar soil and climate, where the best practices are in use ; as from all the turnip counties^ ^ 

 pupils should go to Northumberland or Berwickshire; from the clay counties to East Lothian, or the* 

 Carse of Gowrie ; from a mountainous district to the Cheviot hills, and Twceddale, &c. < 



I9i5. Tlie term of apprenticeship completed, the future time of the impil ought to be regukited accord*!' 

 Ing to the ultimate object in view ; if he is intended for a plotighman, shepherd, or hedger, perbai)S'to 

 introduce new practices in other counties, he may remain for a year or two longer with other masfcersii* 

 the same district,, in order not merely to acquire but to habituate himself to all the improved operations 

 and practices. If he is intended for a bailiff, then, after having been two years on one character of farm,, 

 let, him engage himself fbr a second two years in a district of an opposite or at least of a different cha- 

 racier ; and for a third two years, on a third character. There are, as already shown, only three descrijxir 

 tions of farming in Britain : the bean and clover, or clay-land farming, which includes feeding by soilinrg}' 

 the turnip farming, which includes feeding both by soiling and pasturage; and the hill, or mountain, or 

 pasture farming, which includes all the varieties of breeding. A young man therefore of ordinary inteJ-, 

 lect. who has worked two years in East Lothian on a clay farm, two years in the lower Berwickshire, or ^ 

 in the low part of Northumberland, and two years on the Northumbrian hills, must have a very competent 

 knowledge of that part of agriculture known as farming or husbandry. i '>' 



7946. The higher branches qf agriculture, or what may be called the engineering, valuing, and estate- 

 agency departments, can only be completely acquired by first going through the course above described, 

 as suitable for bailiffs and common stewards, and next placing themselves under an eminent steward, 

 land valuator, drainer, road engineer, irrigator, &c. as the case may be; making choice of a steward wha 

 has extensive woods and plantations, and also, if possible, some quarries, fisheries, or even mines under, 

 his care, and of s land valuer or drainer in full employment When a solid foundation is laid by a' . 

 thorough practical knowledge of all the operations of common agriculture, the higher part is attained ' 

 with ease, and maybe practised with confidence; but, on the contrary, when young men who know- 

 nothing of common country work are sent direct from school, or from an attorney's office, to a land 

 steward or agent, in order to acquire the art of managing landed estates, the worst consequences may 

 be dreaded, both to the proprietors and the occupiers of the territory which may be subjected to them. 

 The condition of many estates and tenants, managed by attorneys, may be referred to in proof of our 

 assertion. 



7947. Young men intended as rent-paying fa7-mers, ^fter two years' labour as common servants^ 

 should be kept as assistant bailiffs on other farms, till they are at least 25 years of age : no young man, 

 in our opinion, ought to be put in a farm on his own account, or employed as a master Ixidiff, at an 

 earlier period. 



7948. In all cases when young men are destined for particular purposes, they should be sent chiefly ta 

 particular districts; as, for example, young men intended for road-surveyors, to where roads are best 

 managed, drainers to a draining country, embankers to Lincolnshire, warpers to the Humber, irrigators 

 to Soulh Cerney, hedgers to Berwickshire, woodmen and foresters to Dunkcld, or Blair in Athol, &c. It 



