16 
Arthur Young. 
He thinks it necessary to apologise for the introduction of 
so many descriptions of houses, paintings, parks, lakes, &c. 
Though having little to do with agriculture, there is, he insists, 
nevertheless, a utility in their being known; and they exhibit 
productions that speak a wealth, a refinement, a taste, which 
only great and luxurious nations can know. For many hundred 
miles he complains that he had nothing but provincial weights 
and measures, all having to be reduced to the common standard. 
His business was likewise so very unusual that some art was 
requisite to obtain information. A profusion of outlay was 
necessary to gain his ends, and he declares he was forced to 
make more than one honest farmer drunk before he could get 
sober, unprejudiced intelligence. Some he suspected of hoaxing 
him, but he always on such occasions repeated his inquiries till 
he gained the truth. In giving a list of those who assisted him 
he says no apology is wanting for joining peers with farmers in 
the same page ; adding, “ He who is the best farmer is with me 
the greatest man.” He covered above 2,500 miles in this tour. 
Young was no friend to the fox-hunter, as witness the follow- 
ing, from vol. v., p. 32, of the Annals of Agriculture: 
But as leaping impracticable ditches is a part of the glory of a fox-liunter, 
should that agreeable friend to the farmer unfortunately cross the ground, 
it must be carefully examined, and those divisions that are trampled struck 
out of the experiment for the year. The same attention must be used if 
other noxious animals by accident break in. 
This is not the place to enter upon the detailed information 
the work conveys. As in all Arthur Young’s writings, he gives 
the fullest information on produce, prices, provisions, popula- 
tion, roads, poor-rates, wages, cost of labour, implements, course 
of cropping, and the general character of the manufactures, and 
he remarks on the exodus of the country population into the 
manufacturing towns, which seems to have been as noticeable in 
his days as at the present time, but which he says can be easily 
explained, and, as a natural consequence of a demand for labour 
with profitable employment, should not be checked or regretted. 
The nineteenth letter in the Northern Tour is devoted entirely 
to a description of the completed portions of the Duke of Bridg- 
water’s canal from Worsley to Manchester, and the projected 
continuation from Manchester to Liverpool. He made his 
visit over the “ navigation ” or canal in a pleasure-boat drawn 
by a horse, and is surprised that the town of Manchester did 
not then possess one boat for the accommodation of its inhabitants. 
“ For want of one,” he says, “ you may very probably wait a day 
or two.” While waiting for his boat he visited the canal works; 
at Manchester. There is an excellent map of the line of the 
