342 KALM'S ENGLAND. 



receipts. For example, ' How to prepare an excellent 

 manure for arable fields.' ' How several [T. I. p. 339] 

 cattle diseases may be cured,' &c. ; but he did not dis- 

 close the method how all this is to be set going with so 

 much advantage, but set forth only at what price he sold 

 one and all of these Receipts. Most of them cost 100 

 dollars (copper pieces) ; but then the purchaser was 

 obliged to swear never to disclose the same to anyone 

 else. It is a pity that the man had so short a memory 

 that he himself forgot to practise these receipts on his 

 own farm and land, for his arable fields and meadows did 

 not look as if they answered to that which was promised 

 in these surpassing receipts. He offered to make with 

 me a tour through several counties in England of fourteen 

 days' duration, to instruct me in English Rural Economy, 

 and for all this inconvenience to him, he demanded no 

 more than that I should only keep him a horse, pay his 

 expenses, and find him in everything he required on this 

 tour, together with twelve or fourteen guineas into the 

 bargain. I thanked him for his attention, and asked him 

 to defer this tour till another time. Nevertheless, I asked 

 after all, that he who had travelled so much about in 

 England in the places where the best English sheep and 

 choicest English wool were found, and now also had three 

 tracts on the management of sheep ready for the press, 

 would let me know what districts and kinds of grass they 

 are in particular, which the sheep eat and flourish so well 

 upon ? and again what the plants are which are so bane- 

 ful or injurious to sheep ? because this is one of the prin- 

 ciples of the management of sheep. Mr. Ellis stood for 

 a little time at this, and remained silent ; but in the end 

 said that he had never given it a thought. 



