shrubs, etc., which he admired in his garden, were planted by his own hand. But if such were the charms which agriculture had for the Roman nobility, how much greater ought it to possess for the nobles and gentlemen of England! Amid all the advantages and recreations which have been pointed out in the preceding chapters as surrounding the country life of modern England, that of scientific farming is certainly one of the greatest. It is a pursuit full of interest and variety, at once natural, philosophical, and dignified. It is difficult to imagine a man of wealth and education more usefully or honourably employed than in directing the culture and improvement of his estate. Agriculture is now become, indeed, as Cicero termed it in his day, “the nearest of all employments to the purely philosophical kind.” It is a science which requires a first-rate education to prosecute it to its full capability, to make the other arts and sciences of modern times bear upon it, and co-operate with it, so as to add something to its progression, or even to apply beneficially the knowledge of its already established principles and practices.[1] It is no longer an occupation which requires a man to forego the refined pleasures of society, to bury himself amid woods and wildernesses in some obscure hamlet far from the enjoyments and intelligence of the world. As we have already seen, locate himself where he will in these islands, the arts, the elegances, the news and knowledge of civilized life, will penetrate to him by swift agencies, and give him all the real advantages of the city in the peace and fulness of his retirement. And what a noble art is agriculture now become! Look at the manner it is now practised by the most skilful of its professors. Let any one just turn over the leaves of Mr. Loudon’s Encyclopædia of Agriculture, and trace the progress of its implements only, from the plough of the ancients in the shape of a mere pick, to the almost endless machines which the active brains of men and their advancing knowledge of mechanics have given to the scientific farmer. Let any one turn to the list of engravings of farming apparatus in the same excellent work, amounting to about 300, and he will obtain some idea of the amount of science and invention now devoted to the use of the agriculturist. There are no men who have availed themselves of the progress of the arts and of general knowledge more than they. Mechanics, chemistry, hydraulics, steam, all have been seized upon, to develope the principles, or facilitate the operations of agriculture. Within the last century the strides which have been made in this interesting department of knowledge are admirable. The Netherlands may be said to have been the mother of our modern agriculture--Scotland its nurse. Tull’s system of horse-hoeing and drill husbandry has been introduced by Dawson, and has brought after it a numerous train of drills, dibbling-machines, horse-hoes, ploughs, rollers, scufflers, scarifiers,