2 Notes and Heflectiom made during a Tour 



which we visited, and comprehending, under each town, the 

 gardening and cultivation of its neighbourhood. 



1. The advantages to be derived by an individual from tra- 

 velling, with a view to his improvement in the knowledge of 

 any particular art, may be included under the discovery of new 

 principles or practices in that art, or the confirmation of such 

 as are already received and adopted. Mere novelty of aspect, 

 seeing the same objects or the same culture in a different situ- 

 ation, under the care of a different description of persons, and 

 carried on by different machinery, will give rise to new ideas. 

 A garden or farm exhibiting an inferior degree of culture on 

 the whole, will often exhibit particular 'points of excellence 

 worthy of adoption into the best systems. A practice which is 

 comparatively new in one country may be old in another, and 

 will there better exhibit its good or bad effects ; or it may be 

 more extended in one country than in another, and, for this 

 reason, may there develope new principles and new conse- 

 quences. To even a superficial observer, the defective prac- 

 tices and inferior results of one country will lend confirmation 

 to the more perfect practices of another. Finally, in passing 

 through countries exhibiting different kinds of culture, under 

 different degrees of perfection, the traveller reviews what may 

 be called a living history of practices, from the inferior to the 

 most perfect, by which he will be enabled to assign to each its 

 proper value. 



The advantages to be derived by society in general, from 

 the recorded travels of individuals, are so great as almost to 

 comprise all that is necessary to the progress of civilisation. 

 By statistical records, the results of particular laws and prac- 

 tices are shown on a grand scale ; and, from minute details, the 

 individuals of every particular country may adopt from every 

 other country what is congenial to their wants and wishes. 

 Nations, like individuals, can only know themselves by com- 

 paring themselves with other nations ; and, for this purpose, 

 descriptive intercourse is the nearest approach that can be 

 made to actual travelling. 



mi 



2. The Imoisoledge required by the traveller should extend 

 to all that has been done or written in his own country; and 

 all that has been written in others, and especially in the coun- 

 try to be visited, on the subject of his pursuits' He should 

 also possess a knowledge of his own country and that to be 

 visited, in respect to the progress of arts and civilisation gene- 

 rally. 8uch, for example, as may be got from the best books 

 on geography, in the extensive manner in which that science 

 is now treated. 



3. On the manner of vieimng objects^ and seeking after 



