74 AGRICULTURAL SURVEY OF chap. III. 



but little concern about an immortality .beyond 

 this present life, there are few who do not wish 

 to live in the remembrance of posterity. But 

 by what means shall this wish be most effec- 

 tually accomplished ? The cabinet, the field,, 

 the bar, the sciences and the arts, are all avenues 

 to lasting fame : but they are avenues open to a few 

 only. Reputation may be more generally, and 

 not less honourably acquired, by the more use- 

 ful, though less splendid arts of rural life. Let 

 the spade and the plough engrave your names 

 upon your lands ; and let your memory be per- 

 petuated by substantial and permanent improve- 

 ments of the soiL With what warmth of af- 

 fection will you be remembered by posterity, 

 when they shall be able to say, to the skilful 

 and patriotic industry of our ancestors we owe 

 the richness and fertility of our lands. These 

 aged and extensive plantations which now shel- 

 ter and adorn the once naked and barren hill, 

 were planted by their hands.. By their toilsome 

 and expensive labours, the marsh has been drain- 

 ed, the stony ground cleared and subjected to 

 the plough, barren moss converted into fertile 

 soil, and luxuriant crops taught to grow, where 

 nought but water, heath, furze, or rocks, were 

 formerly to be seen. 



SECT. III. FARM-HOUSES, OFFICES, & REPAIRS. 



NOT more than twenty years ago, the farm- 

 ers houses and offices in this county had, in ge- 

 neral, a mean and wretched appearance. The 

 farmer usually lived in a low smoky house. 



