THE DREAM FULFILLED 145 



chiefly of travelling in one's own country, through its 

 fields and roads a kind of travelling, I confess, 

 hitherto but little used, and which is looked upon as 

 fit only for amusement. 1 



'We in Sweden attempted for ten years to im- 

 prove our farming by travelling to England, and by 

 translating English books. But the climates of Sweden 

 and England are different. We therefore have found 

 more advantage in attending to the good things which 

 our own country produces, and we have succeeded so 

 well as not now to want foreign aid. You know the 

 poet says : 



The farmer talks of grasses and of grain, 

 The sailor tells you stories of the mam. 



' Everyone thinks well of what belongs to himself, 

 and everyone has methods peculiar to himself. . . . There 

 is scarcely any considerable province of Sweden which I 

 have not crawled through and examined ; not without 

 great fatigue of body and mind. . . . But love of truth 

 and gratitude to the Supreme Being oblige me to con- 

 fess that no sooner were my travels finished than, as it 

 were, a Lethean oblivion of the dangers and difficulties 

 came upon me ; being rewarded by the inestimable ad- 

 vantages which I reaped from those devious pursuits, 

 advantages the more conspicuous that I became daily 

 more and more skilful, and, what I esteem above all other 

 considerations, as it comprehends in one all duties and 



1 To gain most knowledge and apply it most usefully, one 

 should have done a good deal of comparative travelling. 



VOL. II. L 



