with candour fuch facts relating to the subjects that he has treated of, as he knew could be relied upon, or fuch observations as naturally flowed from these; without ever once propofing to give a complete treatise on any one fubject, or being anxious in pursuit of novelty, or folicitous about collecting whatever others may have faid concerning it. The proper business of a farmer is to furnish facts to others, and not to pilfer from them; and he thinks it would tend much to the advancement of this art, if men of knowledge and experience in any branch of Agriculture would be fatisfied with communicating to the public such useful facts as they may have been enabled to ascertain with regard to that particular branch of their art, without endeavouring to extend their observations

vations to every other branch thereof, or

thinking it a duty incumbent upon them to give a phyfical investigation of the cause or every phaenomenon; which too often tends to divert the mind from attending to useful facts, and to lead it, in fearch of a phantom of the brain, into the inextricable mazes of error. For, although a Bacon or a Newton may fometimes appear, whofe towering genius is capable of taking a comprehenfive furvey of nature,-of comparing the dependence that each part has upon another, and the relation it bears to the whole,-of tracing out the laws by which they are united or disjoined, and of thus exalting an art into a science; yet, as there are but few who are thus peculiarly favoured by heaven, it is becoming in others, who have reason to feel

that

that they are not poffeffed of fuch fuperlative abilities, to be more humble in their aim, and to content themselves with moving in a less exalted sphere. Yet how natural is it for man, whofe heart is ever fufceptible of the impreffions of vanity, and whofe mind. muft always be delighted with that fublime beauty that results from a knowledge of nature, to be ready to indulge himself a little too freely in researches which coincide fo well with the natural bias of the mind! Let him who has not erred in this way criticife with afperity the failings of his brethren : It does not belong to me. For, when at times I have been tempted, by fome concurring facts, to think that I had got a glimpse of fome fundamental law, the knowledge of which brought order from confufion;

when the imagination has been fired, and I have been ready to enter an unbidden guest into the facred temple of fcience ;-when I was ready, in my own imagination, to withdraw the myfterious veil that covers nature's works; when I ftretched forth my hand -methought I heard a voice, which, with awful folemnity faid, MORTAL, KNOW THYSELF, BE HUMBLE.--Confounded at the juft reproof, I started from my dream, and with an humble mind, refolved discreetly to pursue the inferior path that nature had affigned me.

Purity of language will not be looked for in a treatise of this nature. A man educated in a remote province, at a distance from men of letters, in a great measure deprived

of

of the use of books, and attending more to the objects of his profeffion, than to the delicacies of style, cannot be expected to write with that purity that might be required in a book of mere amufement. It is the matter rather than the form that ought to constitute the principal merit of every didactic performance. And, as the writer hereof knew that it would be in vain for him to expect to arrive at a claffical elegance of language, it has been his principal aim to convey his meaning to the reader in the cleareft and moft diftinct manner that he could, without any attempt at ornament. He obferves, however, with regret, upon perufing his book, that the great attention he has bestowed to render every thing he fays intelligible to every capacity, has introduced into his

ftyle,