CONCLUSION.

439

at present are sinecures, or of little real utility, and establish-ing in their room, Professors of Agriculture.

3. Improvement of veterinary knowledge _Some encourage-

ment has been given, by an annual grant, to the acquisitionand diffusion of veterinary knowledge, a deficiency in whichhad proved so fatal to the public interest. It is not impro-bable, that for every pound of public money that has beenin this way expended, a thousand has been saved in our na-tional expenditure, in the article of horses alone, employed inthe cavalry and artillery. It would be desirable, indeed, thatschools for veterinary knowledge should be established, in allthe principal towns in the kingdom, and that the preservationof every species of our valuable stock of domestic animals,should be no longer left to ignorance or quackery, but thatthe practice in treating their disorders should be groundedon scientific principles.

2. To give a preference to domestic agricultural productions inthe home market.

This is peculiarly necessary, both to preserve the country fromfamine, and to render it independent of other nations for thenecessaries of life. To permit the industry of every foreign na-tion in the universe, at all times, and without any just limit, toenter into competition with our own domestic industry or pro-ductions, is a degree of infatuation, which can only arise, fromthe wildness of theoretic speculation, or the selfishness of com-mercial enterprise. If two nations, similarly circumstanced inregard to soil, climate, labour and circulation, were to give eachother reciprocal liberty of trading, the system, on the whole,might not be materially injurious to either ; but to place incompetition, the industry of one country, which has a greatnational debt, and heavy taxes, and where the price of labourmust consequently be high, with that of an indefinite num-ber of other countries, which, with better climates, anymorefertile soils, are not subject to these disadvantages, wouldbe infatuation in the extreme, Besides, no country that has