• obfervations in foreign countries. If you defire to hear no more, I fhall be wholly filent; • but give me leave to say, that the treatment which we travellers meet with when we return ⚫ home, is at once unreasonable and ungrateful. If we tell you things that are common, you look upon them as infipid and trifling; and, if we tell you things that are quite new and furprifing, you let us know, with great good 6 manners, that you do not believe us.'

4

Then after a little paufe, Pray fir,' fays he, how many nations are there in Europe, Afia or Africa, who think themfelves at liberty to ⚫ choose their own prince, or to bring him to an account for oppreffion or bad government?' Truly, faid I, I believe not above five or fix. "Well then,' fays he, If, perhaps, fifty to one

of mankind have thought it a fin or folly for ' them to choose their own mafters, is it modeft * in you to fufpect my veracity, when I tell you ' of one nation, where it became fashionable to ⚫ think that they ought not to chufe their own • Servants."

• But, to come a little clofer to the point," fays hé, are you not a member of the select society in Eh? I am, and glory in it as a moft honourable diftinction. 'Have you not taken • agriculture under your patronage?' Undoubtedly; and by what means can we better promote the intereft of the public? By none, I admit. But fuffer me to proceed with my interroga⚫tories.

'tories. Have you bought any land with the profits of your improvements?' Not yet. They are but in their infancy, and have coft me a great deal of expence. Are the crops of improvers generally better than thofe of other. people?' I cannot say they are.

You ought,' fays he, to have confeffed. that they are commonly worfe; for, according to my obfervation, the mark of an improver is not to have a good crop, but to be able to give a rational and philofophical account how he came to have a bad one. But have you not also encouraged a man to write books and read lectures upon agriculture, who made himself a beggar by putting it in practice? Perhaps it may be fo, but he underftood the theory. 'How came you to believe that he understood the theory? Alas!

alas! fir, abfurdities coming into fafhion is not "fo rare a thing at home, as to entitle you to 'doubt the truth of my narrative, when I told " you of the mistakes and delufion of a certain 'people abroad.'

I confefs I was never more nettled at any thing, than at this unexpected attack upon the laudable attempts among us, of late, to improve our native country. To compare them with the monftrous conduct of the unpolished American people defcribed in this book, was unfufferable. I could not, therefore, let the matter drop, but told him, All that you have faid, fir, might easily be answered; however, not to spend time

upon

upon it at prefent, what do you think of, or what have you to fay against the excellent and rational tracts which have been publifhed by private gentlemen of fortune among us, upon agriculture? Do they not contain the clearest arithmetical calculations, of the profit to arife from the method laid down? I fay,' anfwered he, they are all what the lawyers call felo, de fe, and totally inadmiffible.' Your reafon pray. My reafon! why, truly, I have more reafons ⚫ than one. In the first place, they always put f. me in mind of a quack doctor with his catholicon. They have but one remedy for all difeafes. A gentleman happens to be ftruck with "fome new theoretical principle, and immediately falls to work, runs down every thing else, ⚫ and applies this wonderful difcovery to all pur"pofes, all foils, and all feafons. You know what

enthufiafts the horfe hoers and pulverifers are. Many of them are clearly of opinion, that dung is prejudicial to ground, as ferving only to engender weeds. I was once quite of this opinion myfdf, and found no other difficulty in it, than how gentlemen and farmers would get quit of their dung, which, not being returned to the ground in the way of manure, must soon grow up to an enormous, and at the fame time, moft naufeous and offenfive heap. When under thefe apprehenfions, I remember to have projected a scheme to be carried on by fubfcrip£tion, which would have proved an effectual re

medy

medy. The method was, to have plans taken of every county, in which the level should be marked, then canals to be carried through all the low grounds, and fmaller ducts drawn from every gentleman and farmer's houfe, terminating in these canals, which, by the help of a ⚫ collection of rain water at every house, would, ⚫ at certain feasons of the year, carry away the 'whole dung, and at laft empty it into the fea. The expence of this fcheme would, indeed, have been very confiderable; but the great advantages to be reaped from it, I apprehended, 'would foon convince every body of its utility. Now, however ridiculous fuch a fcheme may be, I am fully convinced it would have been put in practice in a certain county, if it had not ⚫ been for the incorrigible obftinacy of the common people. I am also of opinion, that it would have fucceeded, and that dung would have been wholly banished in a fhort time. This would have happened, not only by the help of the canals, but the crops would have ⚫ been fo thin and fpiritual, that the cattle who ' fed upon them would have paffed very little of a grofs or excremental nature,

'I fhall not trouble you, continued he, at this time, with any more of my reafons but one. It 'feems highly incredible that, if the new schemes ' of agriculture were fo profitable as their authors give out, they would be fo generous as to dif< cover them gratis to the publick, and even prefs

prefs the faid publick to accept of them. It is 'more probable they would keep them as a fe6. cret in their own families, till their excellence ( were difcovered by their vifible effects. I 'know a manufacturing town, where, if any man 'falls upon a method of working, or a fabrick ' of goods, that is likely to bring a good profit, he is fo far from preffing it upon his neighbours, that he uses every poffible precaution to keep it to himself. On the other hand, his neighbours are as inquifitive as he is fecret; and commonly both difcover and imitate it in a very little time. There is a difpofition in mankind to refift what is forced upon them, and to leave no method uneffayed to come at what is ⚫ industriously placed out of their reach.

I would, therefore, humbly recommend it to all improvers, to give over talking upon the fubject, and to fall heartily about putting their rules in practice; and, I can promise them, that, if they be fuccefsful, it will not be long before they will be quite common. Or, let ' every person who discovers a noftrum in agriculture, apply to the government for a patent that no body may be fuffered to use it except ⚫ himself, and those who fhall pay him fufficient· ly for the ingenuity of his invention. I can asfure you, fir, that if I had faid to the people whom I left a few years ago, that I knew a

• nation, where it was common for benevolent perfons to point out to them plain, easy, cheap

• and