292 On Agricultural Tours^ ^c, 



on the spot, without trusting to subsequent recollection, 

 what was worthy of public communication, would con- 

 fer (not an incalculable) but a calculable benefit on the 

 public. One section of the country would then learn 

 the actual profit or loss of modes of husbandry pursued 

 in another ; perhaps possessing the same soil and cli- 

 mate, but deriving a greater or less advantage from 

 them, in consequence of variations in their modes of 

 husbandry. It would discover its own errors, or in- 

 crease its own improvements, as the case might be, by 

 comparison with others.— -The publications of such 

 tours, particularly under the sanction of a respectable 

 society, would widely and promptly disseminate this 

 useful knowledge. Is it not surprising, that with the 

 example so long before us, of a nation whose language 

 we use almost exclusively, and whose literature is the 

 chief reliance of our booksellers and printers, and from 

 whom we import so regularly every publication that 

 appears, and, among others, the various tours, not only 

 through Great Britain and Ireland, but parts of the 

 continent, that we should not in a single instance, that 

 I know of, have had a similar exertion made ? I ex- 

 cept indeed some of those " notices^'' of our agriculture, 

 which a few hasty and prejudiced foreign travellers 

 have inserted in their works. Men who have allowed 

 too short a space of time, even for the secondary im- 

 portance, in which this subject presented itself to them. 

 Men, who have formed their theories before they be- 

 gan their travels ; and, inclined beforehand to depreci- 

 ate the progress of art in these new countries, are too 

 blind to perceive, or too uncandid to confess, that art 

 has already made a considerable progress among us ; 



