• INTRODUCTION. 



various means of procuring and preserving them, will be founc to 

 have engaged much of the Author's attention ; and he justly points 

 to the rapidity of their ameliorating action as a peculiar excellence, 

 not otherwise attainable ; at the same time admitting that in the 

 great majority of cases, the great and unavoidable expense at- 

 tending their application, however moderate may be the prime-coit 

 of the material, has always operated as an insuperable obstacle lo 

 their general adoption. In the justice of this vital objection, most 

 practical agriculturists who have used them to any extent, will read- 

 ily concur ; and it will not be uninteresting to the reader to learn 

 that there is reason to believe that it will henceforth be eflfectually 

 obviated by the use of a very simple and convenient apparatus, de- 

 vised by Mr. Smith of Deanston, a zealous and able friend of agri- 

 culture, who at the Highland Society's meeting at Glasgow in 

 autumn last, explained the details of his contrivance ; and the Edi- 

 tor has reason to suppose that the particulars will be given in a report 

 of the proceedings of the meeting, in the forthcoming January publi- 

 cation of the Highland Society's Transactions. 



The Editor is anxious to direct especial attention to the Author's 

 7th chapter, wherein he treats of the organic and inorganic manures, 

 and of crops — of the elements of manures and of crops with their 

 relations inter se^ &c. — a section of the work which presents, in 

 synopsis, a more copious and complete body of new, interesting, and 

 important facts, of a nature more valuable to the practical farmer, 

 than has ever been collected in any previous treatise on agricultural 

 science. The great mass of this invaluable information is condensed, 

 as it were, for practical reference, and displayed in copious and 

 elaborate tabular data— 3. form which, though not attractive, has 

 enabled the writer to comprise within succinct and manageable limits, 

 a quantity of instruction which, in a more discursive shape, must 

 have distended the work to double its actual size. The tables ad- 

 verted to, present not merely the results of multifarious experiments 

 in illustration of the important subject of rotation-cropping, but also 

 these results as especially aflfected by the application of the various 

 manures to which the several experimenters had recourse. The 

 rotations reported may appear strange and curious, and sometimes, 

 perhaps, even amusing to the farmers of England and Scotland ; 

 but not more so, in all probability, than those which are A))1owed in 

 many parts of our Island would appear to the cultivators of that 

 part of Europe where our Author's agricultural speculations have 

 been carried on, and where the bulk of his analyses have been ob- 

 tained : indeed, locality and climate, and their inseparable concomi- 

 tants, will in every country be found to prescribe and control the 

 sorts of crops which may be rendered the most subservient to the 

 permanent advantage both pecuniary and economical of the hus- 

 bandman. Thus, with regard to the Author's more didactic obser- 

 vations and positive directions on the subject of rotations, there is no 

 reason to doubt that, in relation to the soil, climate, and geographical 

 position of the east of France, where his experimental course of 

 rotations has been conducted, they are highly judicious, and hare 



