cumstances, turn out the most profitable to the farmer and beneficial to the public. This may be called the physical department.

Before agriculture can be carried to its highest de

gree of perfection, every particular respecting each of these departments must be fully known. This, however, is a degree of perfection that no man can seriously hope ever to see attained; but, as something is already known respecting each of these departments, the question for our consideration at present is, what are the attainable measures that would tend the most to promote the advancement of knowledge in each of these departments, and towards which an experimental farm, if such a thing could be established, ought to be chiefly directed? For, although it is impossible in practice to separate these departments so effectually as to keep them entirely distinct from each other, yet it will be found that, if elucidations respecting one of these clafses shall be considered as the principal object of experiment, the previous arrangements and general train of operations must be extremely different from what would be required, if the inquiries were chiefly confined to another department; and it is of much consequence that such a plan only should be adopted as the nature of the institution shall be best calculated to effect. To enable the public to form a decisive judgment in regard to this particular, the following remarks are respectfully submitted to their consideration.

No branch of agriculture has been so much adverted to, or has been carried to so much perfection by practical farmers, as those particulars referable to

the first department above specified; on which account I have denominated it the practical department. Indeed, the businefs of the farmer, from the beginning of the world till the present time, has been little else than a series of detached experiments on the best modes of cultivating those particular crops that have attracted the special notice of the farmer on his own particular soil, and under the influence of that climate which prevails where he is situated; or of rearing such animals as had come within his reach, upon the food that he has been enabled to provide for them. In this way he has made a much greater diversity of experiments than could be made on any farm that might be established at the public expense in the space of perhaps a thousand years, could it be continued so long. These experiments too have been so often repeated by individuals under all diversities of seasons and climates, as to give a decisive body of useful inductions to practical farmers that could not otherwise have been ever obtained. Experiments, therefore, that are referable to this department, seem to be peculiarly appropriated to the practical farmer only, and do not naturally fall within the sphere of an experimental farm, unless incidentally, and for particular purposes that will come to be afterwards considered.

What is chiefly wanted under this department is, not so much to make new experiments, as to collect and arrange those that have been already made by the most judicious practical farmers every where; and, by comparing these, and adverting to the variations in respect to soil, climate, and other circumstances, to collect a body of practical directions which could

not fail to prove of great national utility, were these directions to be so printed as to fall within the reach of practical farmers every where; for the circumstance that has hitherto retarded the progrefs of agriculture under this department, is not so much the want of knowledge in it, as the difficulty that has prevailed with respect to the means of diffusing that knowledge among the persons to whom it could prove useful. A farmer is necefsarily confined to a narrow spot, and learns only by imitation to follow what has been practised on that spot, without knowing that a practice, perhaps much more perfect than his own, has been long successfully pursued in another district. views are limited too in regard to the objects that he might successfully rear or cultivate, in regard to all which particulars he might be instructed by means of a publication of the nature here hinted at, especially if accompanied by a few lucid experiments on certain subjects, that will come to be more particularly adverted to below.

His

With regard to the second head, which has been styled the economical department of agriculture, it falls so peculiarly within the province of the practical farmer, and it seems to be so impofsible to carry it to any degree of perfection by any other stimulus than the hope of gain, which an individual shall have a prospect of deriving from his own exertions, that I should consider every experimental institution that could be formed by a society with this view as entirely chimerical. It is a branch of agriculture, however, which may be considered as yet but in its infant state, owing to the innumerable ill-judged restraints under

whose influence the hands of the farmers have been hitherto bound up in the best parts of this island. When landed gentlemen shall become so far enlightened as to see how much their own interest might be promoted by restoring that freedom to their tenants, the want of which has precluded them from dreaming of many improvements that must precede that ardent attention to small and distant profits, which forms the first link in the chain of economical arrangements, they will then see a progress in agricultural exertions that will astonish them, not lefs by the generous independence of mind it will inspire into the tenants, than by the liberal supplies with which their own coffers will be filled, without any painful effort on their part to effect it. Then only the importance of this department of agriculture will come to be duly adverted to, and farmers will learn from each other what their superiors can never teach; because to them it must ever be, in a great measure, unknown. Every investigation, therefore, respecting this department, attempted upon an experimental farm, must, I conceive, be extremely imperfect; so that it ought to be considered rather as a collateral and subordinate, than a principal object.

It remains, then, that an experimental farm ought to be chiefly appropriated to the elucidation of questions referable to the third clafs above enumerated. Indeed, these investigations are of a nature so intricate, and require such a painful attention, and such a nice discrimination of circumstances before truth can be attained, as to render it impossible for any individual, in the ordinary pursuit of business, to attempt the

3

enterprise with a reasonable hope of succefs. The expense too that must be incurred for procuring the aid of talents capable of directing these investigations, and the hands necefsary for executing them with propriety, are such as cannot come within the reach of any individual whose habits of life have been such as to enable him to judge of the great importance of such elucidations; and were that expense to be incurred by a man of high rank, who was incapable of judging accurately in this respect for himself, he would find it so impofsible to guard against being imposed upon by the plausible pretexts of designing men, that the money he would be willing to bestow on this enterprise would be worse than thrown away, as it might be perverted to the purpose of disseminating error by means of injudicious experiments inaccurately conducted, instead of elucidating the truth. From the operation of these causes it has happened that, though there are innumerable facts referable to this head of the utmost importance, that require to be clearly ascertained before we can advance a single step with certainty in the progrefs of agriculture, yet there is not the smallest prospect that ever these facts can be ascertained, unless it shall be done under the influence of an institution of the nature now proposed; and, as it is of the utmost importance that the plan should be well digested at the commencement of the undertaking, and the principles upon which it rests thoroughly understood, so as to admit of its being afterwards prosecuted with a rational steadinefs, it seems to be necefsary that these principles should now be developed with the utmost pofsible precision, that they may be