[ ix ] 



iittie too much, to pretend to inftruct others 

 in hufbandry, before I had convinced the 



world of having practiied it myfelf ; 



no work that I had yet published difplay- 

 ing any matters of experience ? Now, as 

 this queftion may arife in the minds of 

 many of my readers, I think it neceflary to 

 hint, that, imall as my experience is, yet I 

 have fome. I have been a farmer thefe 

 many years, and that not in a fingle field 

 or two, but upon a tract of near 300 acres, 

 molt part of the time ; and never on lefs 

 than ioc. I have cultivated, upon various 

 foils, mod of the vegetables common in 

 England, and many that have never been 

 introduced into field hufbandry; but, what 

 is of much more confequence towards 



faining real experience, 1 have always 

 ept, from the fir ft day I began, a minute 

 regifter of my bufmefs ; inibmuch that, 

 upon my Suffolk farm, I minuted above 

 three thoufand experiments ; in every ar- 

 ticle of culture^ expences, and produce^ in- 

 cluding, among a great variety of other 

 articles, an accurate comparifon of the old 

 and new hufbandry, in the production of 

 moft vegetables : But in this, I would by 

 no means be thought to arrogate any other, 

 than that plodding merit of being viduf- 

 trious and accurate^ to which any one of 

 the moft common genius can attain, if 



he thinks proper to take the trouble. ■ 



A 4 From 



