5 



The whole mischief (admitting- it to have existed) obvi- 

 ously arose from Swift's having- omitted a personage in 

 the agricultural drama ; forming a coalition between the 

 wild theorist and the positive practical farmer ; omitting 

 the intermediate personage, the experimentalist, who 

 would have protected them both from mischief ; suppressing 

 the extravagancies of the projector, and paying every at- 

 tention to his suggestions that bore the test of experiment ; 

 and suffering nothing to pass into practice, which did not 

 afford a reasonable prospect of advancing the agricultural 

 science, and multiplying the benefits derived from it. 



Let us try two or three agricultural questions, by the 

 test of the arrangement I have suggested, and we shall 

 see what progress the science has made without them, and 

 to what state it probably would have advanced, had they 

 been adopted. 



r commence with the Gramma^ my own immediate de- 

 partment. The importance of grassy produce to the agri- 

 culturist is obvious : his summer pasture, and winter 

 provision for his cattle, are derived from the Gramina ;— 

 for the latter, hay is his grand resource. 



Nature has been very liberal to us in this department, 

 and has given us, as my friend Sir Humphry Davy 

 states, 215 varieties of grass, of which he complains, prac- 

 tical agriculturists sow but two, rye-grass and cock's-foot ; 

 the latter too is of very recent introduction, and first re- 

 commended to the world by myself. 



The seedsmen, indeed, who have the commodity for 

 sale, are very ready to recommend certain varieties of 

 grass, and to state the proportions in which their seed 

 ought to be mixed. 



I have on former occasions (and have not yet done) 

 exposed the consummate ignorance, and mischievous dis- 

 honesty of these charlatans. 



