Page:A biographical dictionary of eminent Scotsmen, vol 9.djvu/264

528 society was composed of the highest in rank, wealth, talent, and enterprise, it commenced its operations with spirit and success. In a twelvemonth the agricultural survey of the country was completed. The waste lands and common fields were reported and marked out, an immense circulation of papers on the subject of agriculture effected, and a general interest kindled upon the subject, manifested by a new demand for every published work connected with farm and field operations. The results of this important movement constitute an essential chapter in the modern history of Britain. Such had been the zeal for manufactures and commerce, that the agricultural interests of the country, without which the former would soon lose half their value, had gradually been falling into neglect. But now, the one as well as the other was made the subject of parliamentary legislation and national interest. And, even independently of the vast improvement effected upon every kind of husbandry, and increase of the means of subsistence, under the agency of this new institution, the survey of the country alone, which it had accomplished, would have been a national boon, well worth a greater amount of labour and expenditure. This estimate, upon the correctness of which the welfare and progress of a country so greatly depend, but which has always been attended with such difficulties as to make it in former times incorrect and unsatisfactory, even when persevered in to the close, was made by the society, under the directions of Sir John, so thoroughly, that at last the survey of the whole of Great Britain had been twice gone over, and was published in seventy octavo volumes.

We must now turn to a similar department in the labours of Sir John Sinclair, with which his and our own country of Scotland is more exclusively connected. It will at once be seen that we advert to his "Statistical Account of Scotland." It was in May, 1790, the year previous to the establishment of the society for the improvement of British wool, that he contemplated this great work. He was then a lay member of the General Assembly of the Kirk of Scotland. Such an account as he desired so often attempted in other kingdoms, but hitherto so imperfectly—he saw could only be accomplished by hundreds of learned and talented men united in one aim, and working under the direction of one presiding mind. And where in Scotland could he find these so readily and so fully as in the General Assembly? Each of these men, too, was located in a particular district, with which he had better opportunities of being acquainted than any other resident; and thus the precise state of every parish throughout the length and breadth of Scotland could be obtained from its own minister. After having carefully deliberated his plan, Sir John, as was his wont, began the work in earnest. He drew up, in the form of a circular, a long list of queries upon the geography, natural history, productions, and population of the parish. These were followed by a copious addenda, in which every minute particular that a parish could possess was specified, and everything connected with its changes, history, and present condition. The towns were queried with the same minuteness, while the questions were adapted to the civic character and condition of each. These he transmitted to the ministers, and awaited their replies. The answers dropped in according to the readiness of the writers, and some of these were so regular and so full, that out of them he extracted and published a specimen volume, containing the account of four parishes, a copy of which he sent to the other clergymen, by way of directing and stimulating them in the work. This was in the beginning of 1791, and by the middle of the year his materials had so much increased, that he was enabled, although with