Arthur Young. 
11 
against Sinclair's Statistical Account of Scotland. On Sinclair 
informing him that in consequence of an appointment with 
Mr. Pitt he might expect to lose, and had better send his 
books to the binder, Young wrote as follows : — “You are going 
to Mr. Pitt and I am to lose the wager ; when you come from 
Mr. Pitt I shall have won it. Pray don’t give Ministers more 
credit than they deserve. In manufactures and commerce you 
may bet securely, but they never did and never will do any- 
thing for the plough. Your Board of Agriculture will be in 
the moon. If on earth remember I am to be the Secretary.” 
His bet was lost ; Sir John Sinclair became the first President, 
with Young as Secretary to the Board, at a salary of 400Z. 
a year 1 and a house found. The Board was established, with 
the King for its founder and patron. 
In the following year he engaged with this Board to draw up 
the County Reports, and he furnished those for the counties of 
Suffolk, Lincoln, Norfolk, Hertford, Essex, Oxford, as well as a 
general report on enclosures. In 1790 he paid Mr. Burke 
a visit at Beaconsfield. 
In 1808 a great calamity befell him in his sight failing 
from cataract, and his misery was aggravated by an attack of 
stone. These two diseases, blindness and stone, were the two of 
which during life he had always had the greatest horror. Still 
he rose every morning at five o’clock, and his diary bears testi- 
mony to the religious spirit in which he combated the evil 
propensities of human nature. It is a record of one of the most 
interesting and remarkable phases of a very remarkable life ; but 
these spiritual struggles are not matters for public observation. 
The letters from his Excellency General Washington, to 
Arthur Young, Esq., F.R.S., published in London in 1801, 
commenced in August 1786. Washington, writing from New 
York and Philadelphia, August 1791, signs himself “George 
Washington.” On September 24, 1791, he writes from York 
Town, Pennsylvania, and signs “ The President of the United 
States.” 
His letters, the last of which is dated December 12, 1793, 
are those of a practical farmer and improver, though Washing- 
1 Amongst the curiosities preserved in the house of the Royal Agricultural 
Society is the pass-book, from the year 1793 to 1804, of the Board of Agri- 
culture with the banking firm of Pybus, Call, Grant & Hale— subsequently 
merged in Herries, Farquhar, & Co. The financial transactions of the Board 
were not very numerous, as one pass-book of ordinary size sufficed for eleven 
y ears. It appears from this record that Arthur Young’s salary of 400Z. a year 
was paid half-yearly in March and September from 1794 to 1800, and after- 
wards quarterly at the usual periods.— E. C. 
