This ebook was transcribed by Les Bowler.
By
ARTHUR YOUNG.
CASSELL & COMPANY, Limited:
london, paris, new york &melbourne.
1897.
Arthur Young was born in 1741, the son of a clergyman, at Bradfield, inSuffolk. He was apprenticed to a merchant at Lynn, but his activityof mind caused him to be busy over many questions of the day. Hewrote when he was seventeen a pamphlet on American politics, for which apublisher paid him with ten pounds’ worth of books. He starteda periodical, which ran to six numbers. He wrote novels. Whenhe was twenty-eight years old his father died, and, being free to take hisown course in life, he would have entered the army if his mother had notopposed. He settled down, therefore, to farming, and applied tofarming all his zealous energy for reform, and all the labours of his busyp.6pen. In 1768, a year before his father’s death, he hadpublished “A Six Weeks’ Tour through the Southern Counties ofEngland and Wales,” which found many readers.
Between 1768 and 1771 Arthur Young produced also “TheFarmer’s Letters to the People of England, containing the Sentimentsof a Practical Husbandman on the present State of Husbandry.” In 1770 he published, in two thick quartos, “A Course of ExperimentalAgriculture, containing an exact Register of the Business transacted duringFive Years on near 300 Acres of various Soils;” also in the same yearappeared “Rural Economy; or, Essays on the Practical Part ofHusbandry;” also in the same year “The Farmer’s Guide inHiring and Stocking Farms,” in two volumes, with plans. Also inthe same year appeared his “Farmer’s Kalendar,” of whichthe 215th edition was published in 1862. There had been a secondedition of the “Six Weeks’ Tour in p. 7the South ofEngland,” with enlargements, in 1769, and Arthur Young was encouragedto go on with increasing vigour to the publication of “TheFarmer’s Tour through the East of England: being a Register of aJourney through various Counties, to inquire into the State of Agriculture,Manufactures, and Population.” This extended to four volumes,and appeared in the years 1770 and 1771. In 1771 also appeared, infour volumes, with plates, “A Six Months’ Tour through theNorth of England, containing an Account of the Present State ofAgriculture, Manufactures, and Population in several Counties of thisKingdom.”
Thus Arthur Young took all his countrymen into counsel while he waslearning his art, as a farmer who brought to his calling a vigorous spiritof inquiry with an activity in the diffusion of his thoughts that is a partof God’s gift to the men who have thoughts to diffuse; the instinctfor utterance being almost invariably p. 8joined to the power ofsuggesting what may help the world.
Whether he was essentially author turned farmer, or farmer turnedauthor, Arthur Young has the first place in English literature as afarmer-author. Other practical men have written practical books ofpermanent value, which have places of honour in the literature of the farm;but Arthur Young’s writings have won friends for themselves amongreaders of every class, and belong more broadly to the literature of thecountry.
Between 1766 and 1775 he says that he made £3,000 by hisagricultural writings. The pen brought him more profit than thepl