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iii£tit: whose office it shall be to distribute the great mass 

 of the science into manageable parts or departments, and 

 to assign to distinct committees, their separate portions of 

 tjje great business before them. 



The grand object of agricultural socie^ties, and their 

 committees, should be to investigate the natural history of 

 the vegetables we cultivate, that we maybecome acquainted 

 with their habits and periods, that we may apply the 

 culture most likely to bring them to the highest state of 

 perfection they are capable of attaining. 



The varieties of each species, with their properties, 

 the soils they affect most, their comparative advantages 

 and defects, form most important subjects of inquiry ; even 

 the most cursory view will shew here is a source of full 

 employment for many committees. 



The reports of these committees when re-considered, and 

 perhaps abridged, will compose a code containing a mass 

 of information very different from what is now found in 

 the numerous volumes of agricultural bookmakers, compi- 

 ling from their predecessors, and from each other, with the 

 sole view of forming a vendible book. 



Another most important object, and well worth the at- 

 tention of those respectable societies, formed with the 

 hopes of benefiting their immediate countries, and of 

 course mankind in general, is the inquiry — Can we add to 

 the stock of vegetables we already cultivate, any others, 

 likely to add to our own comforts, or to increase the fa- 

 cility of sustaining our domestic animals ? 



Of the great variety of vegetables we now cultivate, not 

 a single one is a native of our own climate ; the introduc- 

 tion of some is recent, as the mangel ivurzeh The turnip 

 is not of a century standing ; and it is owing to this root 

 that Norfolk boasts she now produces more food for man 



