QUESTIONS ON THE PRACTICES OP GARDENING. 
345 
tions written chiefly by farming gentlemen, or gentlemen farmers. The 
reports from every county in the kingdom were extravagantly inflated, 
giving most wonderful accounts of crops and culture unheard of before. 
No report was published that did not look well on paper, notwithstand¬ 
ing it was well known to practical men that never was there greater 
waste of farming means, nor never greater errors committed on the face 
of the earth, than by the gentlemen farmers about that time. Profit¬ 
able proceedings were only deemed fit for the public eye; all was 
sunshine and golden opinions. 
These reports, however, caused many broils between landlords and 
tenants, masters and servants; and though some good was done by 
exposing and banishing a few of the old customs and erroneous prac¬ 
tices of old farmers, many expedients recommended by the Board 
turned out mere moonshine. One great misfortune to the cause of the 
tenantry about that time was—they had no writer of ability among 
themselves to show up the visionary notions of the learned agricul¬ 
turists, and to keep the public mind steady respecting many of the 
marvellous results of new projects and practices reported in the 
Transactions. 
When the Board was dissolved, the publication of the Transactions 
of course ceased ; but a love for reading about farming continued, par¬ 
ticularly in Scotland, where Kaimes’ and Anderson’s writings were 
disseminated, and explained and applied by the practical and periodical 
remarks of Brown, of Markle. These, together with the voluminous 
writings of the Rev. A. Young and others, brought literary agriculture 
into repute, and constituted it a considerable branch of the bookseller’s 
business. Hence soon followed Farmers’ Magazines, Journals, &c. &c., 
all of which found eager readers, while the business itself continued 
prosperous; but though the number of these periodicals has increased, 
subscribers have sadly diminished, few caring for anything written in 
them, except reports of the current prices of fairs and markets. These 
writings, however, have indirectly done much good, not only by diffus¬ 
ing a general knowledge of the practice, but also of the science of 
the business, and by inducing a desire of reading among a class of 
men who in general were very careless about whatever appeared in 
print. / 
Gardening has been less subject to be disfigured by erroneous or 
irrelevant writings than its sister art, not only because it is an employ¬ 
ment more definite in execution, but also because its professors are 
more on an equality among themselves—is less invaded by amateur 
scribblers, and its practical excellences or defects more universally 
vop. iv.— no. li. o o 
