VI 
Investigations of so extensive and so complicated & 
nature, must require, it is evident, a considerable space 
of time before they can be completed. Differing, in¬ 
deed, in many respects from each other, it is better, 
perhaps, that they should be undertaken at different 
periods, and separately considered. Under that im¬ 
pression, the Board of Agriculture has hitherto directed 
its attention to the first point only, namely, the culti¬ 
vation of the surface, and the resources to be derived 
from it. 
That the facts, essential for such an investigation, 
might be collected with more celerity and advantage, a 
number of intelligent and respectable individuals were 
appointed, to furnish the Board with accounts of the 
state of husbandry, and the means of improving the 
different districts of the kingdom. The returns they 
sent were printed, and circulated by every means the 
Board of Agriculture could devise, in the districts to 
which they respectively related ; and, in consequence 
of that circulation, a great mass of additional valuable 
information has been obtained. For the purpose of 
communicating that infox-mation to the public in gene¬ 
ral, the Board has resolved to publish the survey 
of each county, as soon as it is brought to a state fit for 
publication. When all these surveys shall have been 
thus reprinted, it will be attended with little difficulty 
to draw up an abstract of the whole (which will not 
probably exceed two or thi*ee volumes quarto) to be 
laid before his Majesty, and both Houses of Parlia¬ 
ment; and afterwards a Genei’al Report on the present 
state of the country, and the means of its improvement, 
may be systematically arranged, according to the va¬ 
rious subjects connected with agriculture, Thus every 
individual in the kingdom may have, 
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1* An 
