The grand object of Ct. B.’s investigations and inquiries seemed to be not so much the good of the countries he visited, as to possess himself of a great mass of that sort of knowledge which might be most useful in adding to the welfare and happiness of the inhabitants of that estate to which he was born, and which was a very extensive property. He spent some time with me in Suffolk gleaning agricultural information, intending to apply it to the farmers and peasants of his paternal estate and of his own favourite Bohemia, from which he often lamented that he was driven by the folly and tyranny of Joseph II. It was with great concern that I heard of his very unfortunate and untimely death about ten years after leaving England. He was about thirty-six years of age when in Suffolk, was possessed of various and uncommon powers, built mentally and bodily on a great scale, talked English like a native, walked like a giant, and was of all the multitude of foreigners who frequented my house the most persevering and the most intelligent. This year I made some experiments on the distemper in wheat called the smut, which were amongst the most satisfactory and decisive that I ever found, and in which I corrected some errors of Mr. de Tillet,[126] and proved, too clearly to be doubted, the proximate cause and prevention of that disease. It is almost intolerable, after experiments so decisive, that so many men, through ignorance of what I had done, should for a long time have been bewildering themselves upon the same subject, and continuing to do so to the present day, publishing, too, the greatest errors. These experiments are inserted in the ‘Annals.’ This year I set out on my second journey to France in the month of July. I made this alone, my cloak-bag behind me; and I did not travel thus an[127] hundred miles before my mare fell blind. I have heard and read much of the pleasure of travelling; how it may be with posting—_avant-couriers_ preparing apartments and repasts—I know not. Let those who enjoy such comfort pity me, who made 3,700 miles on a blind mare! and brought her (humanity would not allow me to sell her) safe back to Bradfield. I claim but one merit—that of practising in the midst of all this folly the severest economy in travelling. In the winter Mr. Macro took a seat in my postchaise on a farming tour across Essex and into Sussex, where we spent a day or two with Lord Sheffield.