portant: the poor people universally paid a fair rent for their land, supported thiemselves through the two scarcities without the smallest assistance from the parishes, and were commended by their employers as the most industrious and moral of the labouring class. The poor-rates in the districts which this system pervaded, were from three-pence to one shilling and sixpence in the pound; whereas in districts adjoining, but not under this management, they were six, seven, and ten, times as much. I will venture to assert, that had the board never performed any other service to the public than this single exertion, it would well ha e nerited every shilling that was ever voted to it. Their next exertion was on the subject of draining. The uncommon Success which attended Mr. Eikington's practice in many considerable drainages, executed on principles unknown, or but obscurely hmited at by others, and practised by none but bruseli, very justly attracted the attention of the board. They proceeded in this business as they had done in every other: they began by procuring all the information that was to be had; and being well satisfied of the importance of the discovery, they recommended him to the beneficence of parliament, who voted to him, one thousand pounds. But this was not all: that man, so ingenious on the spots demanding his skill, was astonishingly confused and obscure in explaining his ideas; to such a degree, indeed, that there was no slight danger of his art dying with him. To prevent this, the board employed a person of skill and ingenuity (Mr. Johnston) to take a considerable journey with Mr. Elkington, for the purpose of examining on the spot the chief drainages which had been effected, and of having the principles duly explained. The undertaking was very successful: Mr. Johnston made himself master of the art, and reported it to the board in a treatise, whin has been published for perpetuating a discovery that would have been lest, but for this well-imagined precaution of the board. The deficiency of the crops in 1799, furnished the board with another opportunity of manifesting their vigilance for the public good. On my arrival in town, the beginning of November in that year, I found the president (Lord Somerville) not returned to England from Portugal, whither he had gone for the recovery of his health; and a sufficient number of MONTHLY MAG, No. 197. After members not attending to form a board before the adjournment, I thought it was my duty to write a letter to Mr. Pitt, to that purport in which I conceived the board would have addressed him had it assembled. I stated, from ample information, the deficiency of the late crop, which I conceived was much greater than was supposed at that time, and earnestly recommended to him, to take immediate measures for the introduction of rice from India. In March 1800, Lord Carrington was elected to the presidency, and his lord-hip urged to the minister the same measure. much consideration on the subject, no remedy occurred so certam, safe, and economical, for supplying the expected deficiency, as the importation of a suthicient quantity of rice from India; from some cause or other, however, the critical period for effectual encouragement was suffered to pass by, and though a bounty on the importation was subsequently offered the rice did not arrive till after the abundant harvest of 1801. The article, in consequence, became a mere drug, and the government was called upon to pay no less a sum than three hundred and fifty thousand pounds, to perform the parliamentary guarantee to the importers. This is sufficient to prove, that whether the board was attended to or disregarded, its merit with the public remained the same. millions and a half might have been saved, had the board been listened to. Two On occasion of the first scarcity, the board had ample reason to be convinced of the great importance of potatoes, as a remedy for that deficiency under which the nation laboured. It was proposed at one of their meetings, to offer a premium of one thousand pounds to the person who should make the greatest exertions in that branch of cultivation; but the sum being found too great for the finances of the board, the scheme dropped, not however without some effect; for a newspaper erroneously reporting that the board had actually made the offer, occasioned exertions in various parts of the kingdom, as we afterwards found, by applications from individuals for information relative to the mode of reporting the experiments; and the meetings at that time were convinced, that had such a premium been offered, the effect of it would have been very considerable. Another effort tending to the same end, was that of offering premiums in the 2 L year year 1805, for encouraging the culture of spring wheat: these were widely claimed, and, having been followed by many others since, have proved that the article is well established in many dis tricts. I come now to bring to your recollection, the method and success with which this institution obeyed a requisition from the house of lords, to inquire into, and to report, the means of breaking up certain portions of grass-land, as a remedy for scarcity, and laying them down again without injury to the proprietors. The board deliberated with great attention upon this important object, and determined, by offering considerable premiums, to call to its assistance the information of practical men in every part of the kingdom. The plan was attended with all the success that could be desired: three hundred and fifty memoirs were sent in claim of the premiums; the best of them were printed at full length, and extracts from many others, forming on the whole, a mass of full and complete information, derived from the practice and experience of men known to have been highly successful in their agricultural exertions. No subject in the whole range of agriculture was ever so fully elucidated. These memoirs further contain much other incidental matter of considerable importance; and they have, in various parts of the kingdom, been successfully acted upon. I come now to the more active exertions of the board; in which the principal feature that demands your attention, is the immense undertaking of surveying fourscore provinces; that is to say, an empire, in which no district was to be omitted from the Land's End to the Orkneys. The reports which have been already printed, from among those written ones which this measure produced, detail many particulars relating to the extent, soil, and climate, of each county; the rivers, navigations, roads, and whatever contributes to internal communication; the tenures by which landed property is po sessed and occupied, including the effect of long and short leases: they describe those circumstances which demand attention in the buildings necessary to the Occupation of land; they note the payments to which it is subjected in rent, tithe, and parochial taxes; they give the size of farms, and the consequences of both large and small occupations; they present a detail of enclosures, whether by private exertion or by public autho- rity, and the consequences which have flowed from them; they describe the implements of husbandry, and mark such as merit removal from a confined district to a more general application; they enter into all the minutiae of the cultivation of arable land, and are equally attentive to the pasturage and meadows of the kingdom; they give the particulars of woods and plantations; they enter largely into the detail of the waste-lands of the kingdom, their soil, climate, and value, the improvements which have been made upon them, and others of which they are susceptible; they report upon the means used for the improvement of all the va rious soils, whether by draining, irrigation, paring and burning, manuring, or embanking; they describe the live-stock of the kingdom, and the great improvements which have been made in that important department; they note the price, and various other circumstances, respecting rural labour, the state of the poor, and the various efforts which have been made for ameliorating their condi tion; and they give such particulars relating to manufactures and commerce, as connect them with rural economy. From this detail, which does not however include the whole of the inquiries directed by the board, it must be sufficiently obvious, that these works must necessarily lay such a foundation for a scientific knowledge in every branch of agriculture, as cannot fail of diffusing a spirit of improvement through every part of the realm: this is their direct tendency; and if they should fail of effecting that object, it is not so much the fault of the works themselves, as of the neglect of those who do not sufficiently examine them. It may be asserted with equal safety, that no inquirer into the facts on which the science of political economy ought to be founded, can neglect consulting these works without manifesting an ignorance proportioned to such neglect: in fact, they may be as useful to a member of the legislature, as they ought to be to a practical fariner; and I do not found this assertion on a reference to a few of the best of these productions, but am justified in the opinion by a perusal of the worst. It must be in the recollection of many members of the house of commons, that Mr. Pitt founded many of his calculations that were brought forward in a budget, on the information derived from one of these reports. That I do not estimate this undertak ing, of surveying the whole kingdom, too highly, will appear from the eagerness with which it was imitated in other countries. In France it was begun by the Directory, and finished under the immediate orders of Buonapa té: in Russia a beginning has been made, by a report for the province of Moscow, executed by one of the reporters origin ally employed by this board, and in the carrying on of which no expense bas been spared. General Washington, in a letter to the president, thus states his opmion of the county reports: "I have read with pleasure and approbation the work you patronize, so much to your own honour, and the utility of the public. Such a general view of the agriculture in the several counties of Great Britain, is extremely interesting, and cannot fail of being very beneficial to the agricultural concerns of your country, and to those of every other wherein they are read, and must entitle you to their warmest thanks for having set such a plan on foot, and for prosecuting it with the zeal and intelligence you do. I am so much pleased with the plan and execution myself, as to pray you to have the goodness to direct your bookseller to continue to forward them to me. When the whole are received, I will promote, as far as in me lies, the reprinting of them here. The accounts given to the British board of agriculture, appear in general to be drawn up in a masterly manner, 50 as fully to answer the expectations formed in the excellent plan which produced them; affording at the same time a fund of information, useful in political economy, and serviceable in all countries." Mr. Young then specifies some of the beneficial practices in husbandry, which, from being confined to particular districts, or even to the operations of individuals, have been brought into general knowledge and adoption, by means of the printed agricultural reports. As instances of these he mentions warping; fogging certain descriptions of grass lands; sowing winter-tares on bad grasslands, as a sure means of improving them; putting in all sorts of spring corn without any spring-ploughing, upon strong or wet soils; and the use of long fresh dung, in preference to that which is rotten. He adds also the clear illustration which they have given to the advantages of drill husbandry; and points out instances in which even the agriculture of both the East and the West Indies has received vast benefits from the exertions of the board at home. He refutes some ridiculous prejudices conceived against the board on the subjects of tithes, and of its surveys being supposed to be intended for furnishing new sources of taxation; and in the following paragraph, notices particularly one, which might perhaps have been thought to rest on a better foundation: Another source of obloquy, which has pressed, heavier perhaps than all the rest, and especially in the minds of the inhabitants of this city, was the notion, that the board was the origin of all the endeavours to bring cattle to market in an uncommon degree of fatness. "I know nothing you have done, but to bring ineat to market so fat that nobody can eat it," was an observation of a member of the house of commons. Many pamphlets, and at least forty newspapers, have shewn the same lamentable ignorance. You, gentlemen, well know, that from the first institution to the present moment, the board has never offered a single premium for, nor given its sanction to, any one measure that had the most distant tendency to such an effect. This pursuit flowed into other channels, absolutely unconnected with the board; and there you left it, in my humble opinion, with great prudence. In the premiums you have offered, in the practices you have sanctioned (they have extended no further than the two objects of soiling cattle and working oxen), you had no other view than that of increasing the live-stock of the kingdom, and conse quently the quantity of meat in the market, without the smallest attention to the degree of its fatness. There is not a single measure that was ever adopted by this board, from the original establish ment to the present moment, that had not a direct tendency to increase the common and wholesome food of the lower classes of the people, and to ameliorate their condition by every means that human foresight could devise. Mr. Young concludes with observing: Upon the whole, there is no person who will give a serious consideration to the conduct of the board, but must be disposed to adinit, that it is an institution which has deserved well of the public. To the farmers of the kingdom, you have made no other return for their unfounded suspicions than that which flows in a constant stream of benefits. You have made known, for the interest of all, the advantageous practices of a few; you have sought with unvarying anxiety the means of their instruction; and thousands are enjoying at this moment the profit derived from practices, the origin of which is to them unknown. The landlords of the kingdom must be under equal obligations to an institution, whose uniforin efforts tend to establish the spirit of improvement in every district of the empire. The lovers of science will rejoice to see, that the exertions of the board directly tend to give the same foundation to agricultural knowled, which so many other efforts of the human mind have long rested upon. That you well know how to draw wise conclusions from the premises you have created, you have given repeated and convincing proofs: no advice offered by yon has been acted upon without decided success; none has been rejected without the mischief coming in full clief to the eye on the politician: you would have remedied one former scarcity, and you would have absolutely prevented another; should a third afflct the kingdom, and insufficient remedies be applied, not a shadow of blame can rest on this institution, which has pointed out those lines of conduct which experience has proved to be effective. REVIEW OF NEW MUSICAL PUBLICATIONS. Twelve Songs, with an Accompaniment for the Piano forte or Harp. Composed and dedicated to the Marquis of Huntly, by John Ross, esq. of Aberdeen. THE 10s. 6d. talent, science, and variety, displayed in this collection, will not fail to attract the attention of the lovers of good vocal composition. The melodies are in general natural and smooth in their construction; and the accompaniment is calculated to heighten and euforce the effect. The air beginning with " Supremely blest those hours of youth;" "While many a fond and blooming maid;" "O cease with soft soul-melting strain," "Why dost thou weep, O gentle lady?" are impressively pathetic, and evince a feeling and taste not generally indulged to the heart and mind. Trois Duos Concertants pour la Harp et le Pianoforte. Composé et dedié à Lady Mildmay, par I. L. Dussek, esq. 7s. This work is to appear in three numbers, the first of which is before us, and contains one complete duo. Mr Dus sek withholds none of his vivid imagina. tion and brilliant execution from his Duos Concertants. They appear in each of the movements with a grace and a spirit highly favorable to their proudest powers. In a word, the passages are original, and conceived with vigor; while the union of the two instruments is every where conducted with a skill and cunning, which must conciliate the scientific, and delight the amateur. "The wild Glen where bideth my Love," a Glee, for two Sopranos and a Bass. Composed by Join Clarke, Mus. Dec Cantab. 11s. 6d. This glee, which is set a ballata, forming a harmonized ballad of two verses, is perfectly simple in its construction, yet possesses much interest, while it evinces a taste in conception, and a judgment in expression, only found in the productions of the real master. The flat ninth at the pily appropriate; and the general senti. words "the dark turbid waters" is hapment of the poet is well consulted. "Sft as the Silver ray that sleeps," (Cent Morand's Song in Udelpho) Composed by Doctor John Clarke, of Cambridge. 5s. The melody Dr Clarke has given to "Count Morano's song," has the merit of being perfectly analogous to the style of the words. The passages flow with a still smoothness that bespeaks great favor in erpression; and the piano-forte accompaniment and symphonies are elegant and judicious. Vel cor piu non mi Sento." Sung by Signora Catalan, at the King's Theatre. Arranged for the Piano-forte, by I. Mazzinghi, esq. 2s. 6d. This celebrated air forms, by Mr. Mazzinghi's judicious treatment, an excellent subject for a piano-forte exercise. The Tariations with which he has so ingeniously enriched it, greatly enhance the value of the publication (especially to practitioners), and set both the taste and skill of the composer in the fairest point of view. A Selection of the most admired and original German Waltzes, never before puil shed. Adapt ed for the Harp and Piano forte. Dedicated to the Princess Charlotte of Wales, by Edward Jones, Harp-Master and Bard to the Prince of Wales. 75. 6d. These waltzes, which are forty-nine in number, are selected with taste. They are, for the most part, short, simple, and pleasing, and will well serve the purpose which we should suppose Mr. Jones chiefly had in view, that of agreeably leading the juvenile finger through the first stages of practice, Morgiana. Arranged as a Rondo for the Pianoforte. is 6d. This little rondo is arranged with tolerable address. Its principal recommendation however, will be the simplicity and ease of its style, which render it an eligible school exercise. Though short, its subject givesfit interest; and the digressive matter does not lead the ear astray. Number I. of Vive la Dance, a Selection of the most admired Country Dances, arranged as Du tts for tron Performers on one Piano forte. By eminent Authors. 2s. The present duett is arranged by Mr, Blewitt. The two parts lie well for the hands, and combine with good effect. Tyrolese Morch and Rendo, for the Piano-forte. Composed by Mr. Hoist. 25. This "Tyrolese march" is conceived with spirit, and the rondo is founded on a subject as pleasing as it is original. Simplicity of style and ease of execution appear to have been Mr. Holst's chief objects; and these, it is no compliment to say, he has well attained. The fourth, fifth, sixth, and seventh, numbers of the vocal works of Handel, with a separate accompaniment for the organ or piano-forte, have appeared since we last noticed this elegant and useful work, and continue to exhibit the spirit and liberality of the publishers, Messrs. Button and Whitaker, as well as the taste and judgment of the conductor, Dr. tispieces to Alexander's Feast, and the John Clarke, of Cambridge. The fronOratorio of Saul, are remarkably well designed, as well as finely executed: and in an address to the subscribers attached to the seventh number, the proprietors promise a highly-finished engraving with the Messiah, from an exquisite original Ecce Homo, by Carlo Dolci. MONTHLY RETROSPECT OF THE FINE ARTS. The Use of all New Prints, and Communication of Articles of Intelligence, &c. ure requested under COVER to the Care of the Publisher. |