IMPROVEMENTS IN TILLAGE 547 
1 
18 
place, has been recorded by Arthur Young, who has left us =. a 
an inimitable picture of rural England, as he knew it during 
this period of transition. He was a man of very varied tastes ind , 
and interests, who had engaged in farming on a small scale. Young, 
His observations, when making a business journey into 
Wales through the south of England, excited so much 
interest among agriculturists that he planned a northern 
tour, with the express object of gathering information on 
the state of rural England; he took considerable pains to 
render his enquiry as complete as possible. He advertised 
in the newspapers which circulated within the area of his 
projected tour, and some of his correspondents were able to 
supply him with accurate statistical information; in other 
cases, he had to rely on what he could gather in conversation 
with illiterate farmers, who were suspicious of his motives 
for prying into their affairs. “My business was so very un- 
usual that some art was requisite to gain intelligence from 
many farmers, etc, who were startled at the first attack. 
I found that even a profusion of expense was often necessary 
to gain the ends I had in view: I was forced to make more 
than one honest farmer half-drunk, before I could get sober, 
unprejudiced intelligence.” The contrast between his own 
habits of accurate observation and the slovenliness of many 
of the farmers, is very striking. He asserts that he had who tas ” 
the qualifications for his work which came from practical observer 
acquaintance with agriculture; but he adds, “ what is of 
much more consequence towards gaining real experience, 
I have always kept, from the first day I began, a minute 
register of my business; insomuch that upon my Suffolk 
farm, I minuted above three thousand experiments; in every 
article of culture, expenses, and produce, including, among a 
great variety of other articles, an accurate comparison of the 
old and new husbandry, in the production of most vegetables. 
But in this, I would by no means be thought to arrogate any 
other than that plodding merit of being industrious and 
accurate to which any one of the most common genius can 
attain, if he thinks proper to take the trouble” His book 
abounds with figures in which he was at pains to reduce 
L Northern Tour, 1. xiii. 2 75. 1. ix. 
35—2