Eulogium on TVilliam JFest. 155 



could not fail of exciting more remarks than his deviating 

 from the common agricultural system of the country, 

 had formerly produced. — In the one case, some little 

 pride was mortified, at seeing the successful practice of 

 a citizen, in the improvement of land by courses which 

 were so opposite to what farmers thought could not be 

 altered for the better, or the adoption of measures which 

 had either never reached their ears, or were slighted, 

 from prejudice, or neglected from want of industry ; in 

 the other, the more feeling principle of interest operated 

 to the production of remark, and to a gradual change of 

 their agricultural operations. This change he lived to 

 see eflected, not only in his immediate neighbourhood, 

 but in more remote places, and to behold farms, nay 

 whole districts, brought from a state of poverty to a de- 

 gree of high cultivation, by following the example he 

 had long before set. 



We are too apt to estimate the value of improve- 

 ments, in a degree disproportionate to their value, when 

 the theory that explains their success, or the practice 

 of them has become familiar to us. We wonder that 

 what is so easily accomplished, and is so simple, should 

 have been so long concealed from us, or have been so 

 recently adopted, and this remark will apply with par- 

 ticular force to the present occasion. The practice of 

 producing a fine sward upon upland farms, by the ap- 

 plication of manure to the surface, now appears so sim- 

 ple that it strikes us with astonishment, the thought did 

 not occur to others at a more early period ; but this 

 wonder will cease when it is known that even to this day 

 in many parts of the country, the benefit of it remains 

 yet to be discovered. Men who believe the system of 



