42 Young's Great Unpiihlished Work. 



that I should find something of value with reference to 

 the subject I am now writing on. I was asked by one 

 of the polite officials in the MSS. Department if I should 

 like to see the whole work. I replied in the affirmative, 

 expecting to see two or three volumes at the most. 

 After some delay the door was opened, and there was 

 wheeled noiselessly into the room a kind of perambulator 

 on four Indiarubber-tyred wheels, on which were ten 

 very large volumes of MSS. written on foolscap of very 

 large size, and none of which, I think, contained less 

 than 500 pages, while several contained more than 1100. 

 These enormous volumes, though entitled " The Elements 

 and Practice of Agriculture," really seem to relate to 

 every branch of rural economy, down to the management 

 of bees, the transporting of live fish alive, and the 

 castrating of fish, a practice which seemed to be not 

 uncommon a century ago, and a notice of which I have 

 read in the Scots' Magazine, which runs from 1739. It 

 was, no doubt, on this great work that he thought his 

 reputation would most surely rest, and, considering that 

 its very existence can hardly be said to be known, it is 

 difficult to read Arthur Young's preface to it without a 

 feeling of melancholy. " This work," he says, " which 

 I now presume to offer to the public, has been founded 

 on the basis of fifty years' experience, much of the labour 

 of more than thirty years, and travelling to the extent of 

 more than 20,000 miles. It was not originally under- 

 taken with the design of publication, but to form a 

 collection of all those passages which I met with in the 

 perusal of books for my own private use." Shortly after 

 Arthur Young's death an attempt was made to bring 

 out what has been well called his life's work, and it was 

 accordingly submitted to publishers in London ; but they 

 were all deterred from undertaking the publication, 

 owing to the great size of the book and the consequent 

 risk of publishing it. A few years later Sir John 

 Sinclair, who was anxious that the work should not be 

 lost sight of to the agricultural world, asked to have it 



