C 291 3 



Advantages of Agricultural Tours, On Gleditsia Tria- 

 canthosj or Honey Locust, Hedges. By Wm, Rawle, 



Read August 14th, 1810. 



My dear Sir, 



I wish I could contribute to the stock of the society 

 any thing deserving its notice. Mere theories are of 

 little use to tlie public. Facts accurately described and 

 well established ought to be laid in, before the work of 

 the theorist commences. For these we must, in general, 

 depend on a class of men, who, though liberal in collo- 

 quial communications, are often unwilling to take up 

 the pen. The practical farmer, kind and hospitable to 

 his guest, delights to make his own experience and 

 labours the subject of conversation ; but the mind un- 

 accustomed to literary composition, is as averse to 

 throw the same information on paper, as the hand, ren- 

 dered rigid by daily employment, is often disinclined to 

 the mechanical operation of the pen. The alternative is 

 to go to them, for what they will not bri?ig to us. Much 

 useful knowledge might be collected, and many new 

 and striking matters of fact made public, if agricultural 

 tours, so common in England, were sometimes made 

 here, with a view to publication. An intelligent man 

 who would first begin with our own state, on the more 

 important and best, and perhaps also, (as a contrast) the 

 worst cultivated part of it ; who would visit the farmer 

 at his homestead, closely examine his practice, hear 

 his narratives and his reasonings, look into every thing, 

 both i*^ <rross and in detail, and carefully note down, 



