152 
LIFE OF DEAN BUCKLAND . 
[CH. VI. 
hourly expectation of a mob from Abingdon to set fire to 
their premises, and there are threats of a mob coming 
into Oxford from the neighbourhood of Benson, and our 
streets, every night, are on the point of a row between the 
town and gown. 
“ My brother-in-law has just come in with seven prisoners, 
and has lodged them in Oxford Castle for to-night. To¬ 
morrow he will take them to the jail at Abingdon, where 
there was a rescue this morning of seven out of eight 
prisoners brought in from Hungerford, and a rescue will be 
attempted to-morrow when the men are taken over from 
Oxford Castle. Not one soldier is to be found in the 
land ; and my brother-in-law is fighting with a party of 
fox-hunters, turned into special constables, and galloping 
sixty or seventy miles a day during all the past week.” 
On so kind-hearted a man as Buckland, the agricultural 
distress, with which his frequent journeys through the 
country made him unusually familiar, produced a profound 
impression. Convinced as he was that the true remedy 
was to be found in improved methods of cultivation, and 
in the utilisation of all the assistance that science could 
supply, he endeavoured, both by example and by precept, 
to help forward the work of agricultural progress. 
Among his MSS. lectures and notes 1 are some very 
interesting remarks on the possibility of reclaiming bogs. 
It was, perhaps, his oft-repeated maxim, that “there is 
no waste in nature,” which induced him to take endless 
trouble—to visit, examine, and make notes on all the 
different bogs, morasses, fens, and marshes in the United 
1 The biographer is much indebted to Professor Green for his great 
courtesy and kindness in allowing her access to these MSS. and 
Portfolios, which have greatly assisted her in compiling this memoir. 
