A Guide to the Understanding. 15 



portion of our lands is concei-ned, depends ; and it is 

 hardly necessary to eay that the same principle applies 

 to the creation of permanent pastures. Having thus 

 stated what I conceive to be the governing principle 

 of the subject, I now propose to advance, in the 

 following chapters, to a careful consideration of the 

 whole important subject of the best, most rapid, and 

 the cheapest way of creating a good turf; but before 

 proceeding to do so, I wish again to recur to what I 

 have previously alluded — the danger of misapplying 

 the genei-al principle I have dwelt upon, and it is the 

 more necessary to do so because I know of no subject 

 as to which you will hear so many contradictory 

 opinions, and as to which one is more liable, from 

 various causes, to come to erroneous conclusions, seeing 

 that the reckoning to make a farming conclusion 

 correct consists of so many items, that there is there- 

 fore a great difHculty in collecting all of them into 

 one view, and a still greater difficulty in estimating 

 their comparative value. A gttide to the understanding, 

 then, should be ever near, and I know of none equal 

 to Locke's "Conduct of the Understanding" — a small 

 book of about 100 pages, the most convenient edition 

 of which (Fowler's) may be bought for a few shilHngs.' 

 A careful study of this little volume will keep the mind 

 active to the reception of new ideas, and aid it in 

 carefully collecting and weighing, and re-weighing, all 

 the points that bear upon the present complicated 

 agricultural situation ; it cannot be too highly recom- 

 mended to all those who are engaged in carrying 

 out the changes that are necessary to enable us to 

 profitably manage the land of Great Britain. The 

 situation, indeed, with reference to foreign competition, 

 and agriculture itself, is so complicated that the student 

 might well turn away from the whole subject in 

 despair, unless he follows the admirable counsel of 

 Locke in the section on "Despondency," where, as the 

 reader will observe, his teacher leads to the inference 



