Page:A biographical dictionary of eminent Scotsmen, vol 9.djvu/263

Rh ing, firing of guns, and dancing. It was a grand patriarchal festival of the primitive ages, with the usages and costume of .the eighteenth century ingrafted upon it; and, as such, it was well calculated to pass off with eclat, and be long remembered with pleasure by all who had shared in it or witnessed it. And most diligently had the infant society already worked to deserve such a holiday; for, besides sending out inquiries into every district of the island respecting its woollen produce, and ascertaining the qualities of the different breeds of sheep, it had distributed throughout Scotland the choicest specimens of the Cheviot, and imported valuable additions from England, from France, and Italy, and even from Iceland, the East Indies, and Abyssinia.

The important objects of such an institution, and its results, suggested another, for a different but still more important department. This was the well known Board of Agriculture. No one who has witnessed the relics of agricultural barbarism that still survive in Scotland, and more especially in England, can fail to be struck with the clamant necessity of its reform; in the one country an excess, and in the other a deficiency of means, was used to produce the same effect, from the slim wooden Scottish plough, drawn by a shelty, and held by a woman, to the huge earth-crusher of the fat fields of England, managed by a whole string of elephantine horses, superintended by two or more farm-servants. It was full time that a bold innovator should step forward; and from his past labours, no one had a better right to assume such. a dangerous office, or was better qualified to carry it into effect, than Sir John Sinclair. After much thought, he published and circulated his plan, and on the 15th of May, 1793, he brought it, in the form of a motion, before the British parliament. The advantages to be derived from an agricultural board, were the following:—It would form a reservoir of agricultural intelligence, to which every inquirer might have access. By its surveys, it would collect every fact or observation connected with the improvement of soil and live-stock. By its foreign correspondence, it would gather and diffuse over the country a knowledge of those foreign improvements to which our untravelled yeomen and peasantry had no access. And, finally, it would be the means of obtaining a full statistical account of England, a work that had hitherto been attended with insuperable difficulties. These advantages he stated in bringing forward the measure before the House, and he suggested that the experiment should at least be tried for five years, with a grant from parliament of only £3000 per annum to defray its necessary expenditure, while the members of the board should give their services gratuitously. It was well that such a plan, which many stigmatized as Utopian, was backed by all the influence of Mr. Pitt, without which it would probably have been unsuccessful. Perhaps it was equally fortunate that George III. was on the throne, that most agricultural of sovereigns, than whom, the poet tells us,

The proposal for the establishment of the Agricultural Society was passed in the House by a majority of 75, and the board was appointed and chartered by his majesty, Sir John himself being nominated its first president. As the