12 
Arthur Young. 
ton says he never possessed much skill in the art, which had 
been among the most favourite amusements of his life. He 
describes the agriculture of the United States as unproductive 
to the practitioners and ruinous to the landowners (a condition 
of things not yet much improved), and he embraces with avidity 
Young's offer to supply him with “ men, cattle, tools, seeds, 
or anything else that may add to my rural amusements.” 
Young suggested the publication of extracts from the Washing- 
ton correspondence in The Annals ; to this the President replies, 
“ I am afraid it might be imputed to me as a piece of ostenta- 
tion if my name should appear in the work. ... I wish most 
devoutly to glide silently and unnoticed through the remainder 
of my life.” (December 4, 1788.) 
In 1808, when the loss of sight rendered his services at 
the Board of Agriculture unavailable, Young received the compli- 
ments of the Board in the form of a gold medal for long and 
faithful service to agriculture ; and now, though his digestion 
became disordered and his sight was gone, he heard the different 
new WQrks read to him, and he engaged in the preparation for 
the press of an enormous work on the elements and practice 
of agriculture, containing experiments and observations made 
during fifty years. A condensed manusci’ipt transcription was 
prepared, in ten volumes, by Mr. Walpole de St. Croix, who with 
his brother is buried in Bradfield Churchyard. 
In the preface to this great unpublished work Young says : 
“ I cannot but esteem the period in which I have farmed and 
given an almost exclusive attention to husbandry, extending to 
half a century, as by far the most interesting in the progress of 
that art. The gentlemen who then practised agriculture with 
attention were unknown to each other beyond the limits of their 
respective districts ; the taste itself was but in its infancy, nor 
was much public attention excited till I published the Southern , 
Northern, and Eastern Tours , works which at that time were very 
generally read. Since then the fashion of agriculture has been 
rapidly establishing itself, and has done more to enrich the 
kingdom and build its prosperity on a sound basis than perhaps 
all other causes put together. This noble spirit of individuals 
may be said to have done the whole ; for it is within this period 
that the political economy of the legislation changed its system. 
The commercial system became predominant in Parliament, and 
gradually gave such a preponderance to the profit of trading 
capital as greatly to retard investments in the agriculture of the 
kingdom. Notwithstanding the operation of such a manifest 
pyil, husbandry has upon the whole mp,de great progress, which 
