16 A Guide to the Understanding. 



in good health, the future of our fanning, so far as the 

 arable portion of our lands is conpemed, depends ; and 

 it is hardly necessary to say th?it the same principle 

 applies to the creation of permanent paiStures. Chicory, 

 it is worth noting here, would decline and almost dis- 

 appear (though we still have some of it in a pasture 

 fourteen years old) from a permanent pasture, but it 

 must be remembered that its very deep roots which 

 have been traced down upwards of 4 feet, will, when the 

 plant has died, leave passages in the soil down which 

 the roots of other plants will descend to feed at greater 

 depths in the soil than they otherwise would. Having 

 thus stated what I conceive to be the governing principle 

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

 ing 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 general 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 therefore a 

 great difficulty in collecting all of them into one view, 

 and a still greater difficulty in estimating their com- 

 parative value. A guide 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 shillings. 

 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- 



