could we find footing, I would line out roads enclosing squares of a hundred miles; to be afterwards subdivided as circumstances required. No where need the cost be great. Safe bridle-ways would be sufficient, with comfortable inns at the end of every day's journey. Beyond the 60° of latitude, where neither bush nor tree would interrupt the route, little else would be required but posts within view of each other, bearing these words, "The highway of George IV." These posts should be of cast: iron, manufactured at home, and carried abroad by ships now rotting in our harbours. The northern regions, divided into compartments, might, in a few years, be made to yield up their natural productions to infinite profit:their fish-their furs-their minerals. The Esquimaux and Arctic Highlander might then be roused to action and enterprise ;-they might speedily be made to feel advantage from pursuing the paths of industry; and, in the multiplication of their wants, be taught to add both to their own and our happiness;-be made to think, and feel, and know for what they were made-for what they were endowed with faculties above the brutes that perish. Yes, the making of roads might lead to wonderful improvements. By this, excitement may lead on to excitement; and activity be witnessed from pole to pole: Yes, the making of good roads should be the first improvement of every country, and, now that I think of it, I shall dedicate this volume to the spirit of my father, than which a purer never visited the earth.

1

My father had a liberal education: was bred to the profession of law; and, after apprenticeship, practised it for thirteen years in Edinburgh. During this period, he purchased the estates of Scotstarvet and Broadleys; and by the sale of part of these, soon afterwards, had the remainder free. He also purchased up for a mere trifle, his elder brother's (a clergyman) patrimonial inheritance of Craigrothie, where our family has been domiciled genera

tions out of count.

After this, he married my mother, who was heiress of the small farm of Baltilly, in the parish of Ceres; and soon after, giving up his law business, devoted his whole time to the improvement of his land, and I may freely say, to that of the country. He was the most active of those who struggled hard against ignorance, for the introduction of turnpike roads into Fifeshire, about the year 1788. He lent the chief hand to making the Kennoway turnpike; the Kilmaron turnpike; the Glentarkie turnpike; and the Ceres and St. Andrew's turnpike; all in the county of Fife. He improved the soil of every farm he occupied to the utmost, and adorned every one with plantations of wood. I have traversed the island in every direction, yet never found one, who for such a period of years (upwards of 40), had pursued so liberal, and, to all appearance, so judicious a course of management. He was an adept in business; regular in every way, and indefatigable. In 1813 his land was worth upwards of £120,000, and his floating capital could not be less than £20,000. From what he told me, and from all appearances, I had reason to think him worth, at that time, nearly £80,000; yet, strange to say, before the end of 1815, his affairs were discovered to be embarrassed: he was brought to bankruptcy; and at this time only about 12s. in the pound have been paid to his creditors; a consummation to me altogether mysterious. Unfortunately, he would never communicate with any one as to the real state of his affairs, and both I and my brother, sixteen years younger, grew up to manhood in perfect ignorance of them. The confusion and waste, I believe, must have happened within the last six years of his management, when he was upwards of seventy years of age, become infirm, and liable to be imposed upon. Scripture tells us that threescore and ten years sum up the life of man, not of extraordinary strength; and, then, at farthest, every one should wind up his worldly affairs. My father unfortunately did not attend to this: all had

prospered with him beyond precedent up to that time of his life; and the hope that he might do more and more good to his family and the country was seductive. His love for improvement had been from the beginning a passion; truly laudable when kept within bounds. Beyond his seventieth year this passion increased: it became too strong; and herein was error, though venial. I am certain that a mean or a sordid idea never harboured in his breast. Nearly £20,000 of incumbrance now resting on his estate, sprung out of securities granted to a friend, and to the public roads of Fifeshire. He died in his eightieth year. Neither he nor any one of his family was given to extravagance, in personal gratifications. We always lived within our apparent means: fully, but not foolishly. I lost in Wiltshire upwards of £6000.; but the people of that county will witness to the cause. It had no concern either with extravagant living or mismanagement. My farming practice, for several years before I had to give in, was reduced to a perfect system. My servants, both Scotch and English, were truly exemplary. They were paid well, and worked hard, without either scold or scowl.

My servants carried the prizes for good ploughing again and again in Wiltshire, and I too had premiums from the Bath and Wiltshire Agricultural Societies, till I got sick of these worse than useless institutions, to expose the trifling and vanities of which I published in the Salisbury Journal of 21st Nov. 1814, the following Address, with challenges, which were never taken up.

TO FARMERS

Of the Hill Country of Wilts, Hants, and Dorset.

COULD it avail, farmers! I should be glad to advise with you, at this time, as to the grand political causes which depress

The purchase and sale of my father's estates is worthy of

agriculture, and threaten to overwhelm us; as well as of the best means whereby we might be able to cope with foreigners in open market. I should more earnestly do this, now, that parliamentary reports have come forth, stuffed with ex-parte evidence and self-imposing plausibility, manifesting a steady purpose on the part. of landed proprietors to press upon the legislature selfish and factitious expedients, which will effect but a temporary remedywhich, in fact, taken alone, will tend ultimately to the increase of our grand national disease, and must immediately impose upon us, farmers, unmerited odium, if they do not embroil the country at large in trouble.

But my brother farmers have either not actually shaken off the fetters of vassalage, or the bare remembrance of the feudal tie is still too powerful for their imaginations. All attempts to induce them to touch the main springs of improvement,-to be virtuously independent, and to enlarge independence and security, would be vain. My present purpose, therefore, affects but the manual of agriculture, and here it is better to do a little than to be idle.

Whoever reaps the benefit of dexterity and skill,-whithersoever their productions may tend, there is ever in the development of these, something valuable and praiseworthy. Indeed, dexterity and skill, are, next to liberty, the best inheritance of a nation; and will be ever efficient in maintaining, when unobstructed, its respectability in the face of the world.

Agricultural Societies might have done good in this way, but their objects have never been sufficiently defined or substantial; and, respecting too little the grand principles which govern all men, they have invariably disgusted the practical farmer, attempting to lead him by the slender vanities,-by empirical pretensions and coxcombical exhibitions.

After a residence of five years in this country, there appears to me certain objects which admit of amendment. They will be embraced within the three following Challenges, which I throw out neither for gambling nor parade, but as sober and decisive means of establishing important facts.

record, as marking, strongly, changes of value in money and

The first I shall bring in course affects a practice by far the most glaringly wrong. I mean the abominable one of dragging out little boys eight or nine years old to drive horses at plough, even in the severity of winter, when they are positively a hindrance to the work.

Every nation looks with detestation and disgust to certain foreign practices. An Englishman would reprobate that of some who oblige their women to carry on their backs the manure to the fields; and would sicken at that of others whose luxurious repasts are previously chewed by their domestic servants; but he passes on his way at home, unconcerned, though at every step he may see the rising generation exposed to the surly blast, and soul and body' stinted and shrivelled by premature toil,

The second Challenge regards the most material feature in perfect tillage-the cultivation of turnips. This I am the more ready to advance, as my own wavering and unsuccessful efforts for some years, gave rise, pretty generally, to an impression, that I had failed in the practice of drilling this crop. The fact is, that the Scotch method, which is by far the best on most soils, was found, by me, inadvisable on the chalk hills of Wiltshire; and, after many experiments, I am now confirmed in my present practice of drilling, which differs from the Scotch mode only as to the manner of applying the manure*..

The third Challenge must speak for itself: few parts of the island admit of such a contest; that which you occupy affords it peculiar scope, containing, in a greater degree than any other, an extent of soil, with climature, and other circumstances nearly similar.

you

half way,

each

CHALLENGE 1st.—I engage to meet any of bringing two ploughs, one drawn by two horses, and the other by

* I carried the premium of the Wiltshire Society for growing the best Swedish turnips, upon my chalk bottom land, against a competitor on the best turnip soil in Wiltshire,-a sandy loam.