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Advertisement, xxvii 



I CONFESS, that when I ventured to 

 recommend to public attention, the Eftab- 

 iidiment of a Board of Agriculture *, it 



did 



* In the following pafTage, publiOied (in 1790) in the 

 Rural Economy of the Midland Counties, i. 222. 

 « I have already faid, in the courfe of thl^ work, that it 

 « is not my intention to obtrude my fcntiments, iin- 

 « feemingly, on National Concerns; but poileiTed 

 « of the mafs of information, which, in the nature of my 

 « purfuit, i muft neceflarily have accuiriuhted, — no man, 

 « perhaps^ having had a fimikr opportunity, — I tliink it a 

 ^' duty I owe to fociety, and an infcparable part of my 

 « prefent undertaking, to regifter fuch ideas, whether 

 « political or profcfiional, as refult, aptly and fairly, out 

 ^< of the fubje6l before me: and, in this place, I think it 

 « right to intimate the probable advantage which might 

 *« arife from a Board of Agriculture ;— or, more 

 *' generally, of Rural Affairs; to take cognizance, 

 ^' not of the ftate and promotion of Agriculture, 

 « merely; butalfo of the Cultivation ofW as Ttsan4 

 ^' thePROPACAT'ioN of Timb£R : bafeson which, not 

 « Commerce only, but the political exigence of the Natior? 

 « is founded. And when may this Country expea a 

 « more favorable opportunity, than the prefent, of laying 

 «' a broad and firm bafis of its future profperity ?" 



Here, I find my pen forcibly arrefted, and bent from 

 the public fervice, towards my own gratification. And 

 it may be pardonable in a man, who his labored long and 

 hard in the fervice of the Public, and this, too, with but 



few 



