2

in its totality; to refute it, we need only com-pare the writings of Cato, Columella, or Pliny ,with many modern tracts, or still better, withthe modem practice of our best farmers. Itmust be granted, however, that vague and for-tuitous experience has contributed much moreto the present flourishing state of this art thanany general principles deduced from our lateacquired knowledge, either of the process ofvegetation, or of the nature of soils; but theskill thus fortuitously acquired is necessarilypartial, and generally local; the very terms em-ployed by the persons who most eminently pos-sess it, are generally of a vague and uncertainsignification. Thus Mr. Young, to whose la-bours the world is more indebted for the diffu-sion of agricultural knowledge than to anywriter who has as yet appeared, remarks, Thatin some parts of England, w here husbandry issuccessfully practised, any loose clay is calledmarl*; in others, marl is called chalkf; and,in others, clay is called loamf. Philosophicresearches have been made, not yet sufficiently

* First Eastern Tour, 178.t 2 Bath Mem. 192, 220 + 2 Bath Mem. 137.