The BEAUTIES of all the MAGAZINES felelted. 535 duce new fyftems, have been obliged to relinquith their purfaits, and return to the old beaten tract which experience has confirmed, and to which long practice has given an almoft indubitable fanction Bre. I am aware there are fome exceptions to this generat obfervation; a few men, by a peculiar addrefs, and by ftriking out new ways of management in husbandry, and by taking advantage of circumftances as they prefent themfelves, have in the courfe of a few years amals'd fortunes equal to the purchafe of the eftates upon which they have been raised; but it fhould be particularly remarked, on this occafion that this was never the cafe by pursuing any new fyftem of husbandry, but by varying the old according to the advantages that offered. I knew a farmer in Effex, who by renting only a hundred pounds a year, acquired a fortune of 10,000l. and died a young man; his method was, to acquaint himself with the feedfmen in London, to contract with them for the produce of a certain number of acres, and to deliver that produce to each, cleaned and properly prepared for fale at a certain price; this he continued to do from year to year to the inutual fatisfaction and advantage of both parties; another part of his farm he planted with herbs for diftillation and medicine, and he supplied the apothecaries with these at a very moderate price; a third part he plowed in the ordinary way; and the remainder he laid down with grafs. He contrived the inftruments most proper for the cultivation of his lands; and he confined himself to no regular practice but accommodated his culture to the nature of his foil, and the fort of vegetable it was intended to produce by this means he improved his lands amazingly, and by improving them enriched' himfelf. The boasted crops fometimes produced, and the advantages made by an acre of land fo managed and planted, tho' it may make a striking figure in a news paper, can never be extended in to general practice; and the great pro- 20 When men, however, have once poffeft themfelves with chimerical notions of gain, induced thereto by the plaufible reafoning of fpeculative en quirers, who are but too apt to confider things in the extreme, there is a fort of infatuation attending them, even in their miscarriages, for I have never yet known one of thefe gentlemen who have failed in what is called the new husbandry, who has ever attributed his ill fuccefs to any defect or ways thrown the blame on his unlucky error in the principles; but has alchoice of managers; not perhaps fufficiently confidering the difficulty of managing a large extent of land with that care and circumfpection, that nicety and even dexterity which are abfolutely neceffary, in the new way, to ensure fuccefs. the first Englishman, perhaps the first The ingenious Mr. Jethro Tull was writer, ancient or modern, who has attempted with any tolerable degree of fuccefs to reduce agriculture to certain and uniform principles; and it must be confeffed, that he has done more towards establishing a rational and prac tical method of husbandry than all the writers who have gone before him neither will it be a reflection upon those great names abroad Du Hamel, &c. &c. whn have fince endeavoured to improve upon his theory, that they have not fully and clearly comprehended it. Y! on he borders of Berkthire, where he Jethro Tull, Efq; of Profperous Farm bandry, was a gentleman of an ancient wrote his treatise on horfe-hoeing huffamily in Oxfordshire, had a competent paternal estate, and a liberal university educa education, which he improved by applying himself to the ftudy of the law, not as a profeffion, but to inveftigate the true principles of the conftitution of his country, in which he hoped, one day or other, to make no inconfiderable figure; after being admitted a barrifter in the temple, he made what is called the Grand tour, vifited the feveral courts of Europe, and in every country through which he paffed, was a diligent obferver of the foil, culture, and vegetable productions natural to each; and of the different methods of plowing, fowing, planting and reaping; and the various inftruments made ufe of in various countries for that purpofe. Upon his return home he fettled upon his estate in Oxfordshire, married a lady of a genteel family, and being naturally inclined to an active life, occupied a farm of his own, and applied himfelf to the management of it in the way that he thought most rational . : In obferving the vineyard culture in the most fruitful parts of France, he discovered, or thought he discovered one general method of cultivating all land to advantage in all countries; he obferved, that where the vines flourished the best, the vineyards were moft regularly planted, and the foil molt carefully dreffed; that by frequently plowing, hoeing, and ftirring, the ground was kept fine and light, the weeds destroyed, and the foil enriched that where this care was taken, the clusters were large and full, and the juice rich and high flavoured; but where the vines where fuffered to grow promifcuously, and all culture neglected, fave pruning, the clusters were comparatively lean and meagre, the juice poor and flat, and the annual fhoots far lefs luxuriant than in the vineyards proper ly managed. From thefe obfervations he concluded, that a regular method of planting or fowing every kind of vegctable was the way to propagate it to moft advantage, and he began with experi ments upon corn and grafs to confirm difprove his new hypothefis. The fuccefs of the experiments he made in his garden encouraged him to extend them into his field, and he now first began to contrive inftruments to facilitate the labour, and to render the whole bufinefs of husbandry as expeditious in his new way, as it was, after long practice, in the old. Novelty always excites curiofity; many gentlemen came from different parts on the fame of this new method of farming; fome of whom were per fuaded by the weight of Mr. Tull's arguments to go hand in hand with him in the courfe of his experiments; while others, who thought themselves more wife, and more difcerning, took every occafion of ridiculing the practice, and of representing it as a fanciful project, that after a great expence would end in nothing but the ruin of the projector. In general, the whole body of farmers and husbandmen pronounced the man a conjuror, who by fowing a third part of his land, could make it produce a quantity equal to that of fowing the whole. While the project engroffed the converfation of the neighbourhood for ma ny miles round, Mr. Tull employed himself affiduously in training of fervants, and in accommodating the inftruments proper for his new husbandry to their limited capacities: and this work he found much harder to accomplish than he at first expected, it was lefs eafy to drive the ploughman out of his way, than to teach the beasts of the field to perform the work. The late Lord Ducie Moreton, who followed Mr. Tull, or rather accompanied him in this laborious and vexatious business, has very frequently, if I have been rightly informed, to correct the aukwardness of his ploughmen, or overcome their obstinacy, ftript himself of his dignity, and put his hand to the plough himself; and yet with all this condefcenfion in his lordship, and with all Here is was that he wrote his book on Horfe-howing husbandry, and where many of his er experiments were tried. all the vigilance, activity, and ingenuity of Mr. Tull, who was a most excellent mechanick, they were both forced at laft, after a world of money expended to very little effect, to relinquith the project, and to content themselves with farming their lands in the ordinary way, except fome fmall portions of it, which they referved for further experiments. Some time after this, Mr. Tull by intenfe application, vexatious toil, and too frequently expofing himself to the viciffitudes of heat and cold in the open fields, contracted a diforder in his breaft, which not being found curable in England, obliged him a fecond time to travel, and to feck a cure in the milder climates of France and Italy. Here he again attended more minutely to the culture of those countries, and, having little elfe to do, he employed himself during three years refidence abroad, to reduce his obfervations to writing, with a view of once more endeavouring to introduce them into practice, if ever he fhould be fo happy as to recover his health, and be able to undergo the fatigues of a second attempt. From the climate of Montpelier, and the waters of that falutary fpring, he found in a few months that relief which all the power of phyfic could not afford him at home; and he returned to appearance perfectly repaired in his conftitution; but greatly embarrassed in his fortune. Part of his paternal estate in Oxfordfhire he had fold, and before his departure had fettled his family on his farm at Profperous already mentioned, where he returned with a firm refolution to perfect his former undertaking, having as he thought devised means during his abfence to obviate all diffi. cuities, and to force his new husbandry into practice by the fuccefs of it, in spite of all the oppofition that fhould be raifed by the lower clafs of hufbandmen against it. He revifed and rectified all his old inftruments, and contrived new ones proper for the different foils of his new farm and he now went oil pretty fuc VOL. III. cefsfully, though not rapidly, nor much lefs expenfively in the prosecution of his new fyftem. He demonstrated to all the world the good effects of his Horfe Hoeing Culture; and by raifing crops of wheat without dunging for 13 years together in the fame field, equal in quantity, and fuperior in quality to thefe of his neighbours in the ordinary course, he demonftrated the truth of his own doctrine, that labour and arrangement would supply the place of dung and fallow, and would produce more corn at an equal or less expence. But though Mr. Tull was fuccefsiul in demonstrating that this might be done, he was not fo happy in doing it himself. His expences were enhanced various ways; but chiefly by the ftupidity of workmen in constructing his inftruments. And in the aukwardness and wickedness of his fervants, who because they did not, or would not comprehend the use of them, feldom failed to break fome effential part or other, in order to render them uielefs. Thefe difadvantages were dif cernible only to Mr. Tull himself; the advantages attending the new hufbandry were now vifible to all the world; and it was now that Mr. Tull was prevailed upon by the follicitations of the neighbouring gentlemen who were witneffes of its utility, to pubith his theory, illuftrated by a genuine account of the refult of it in practice, which he engaged to do, and faithfully performed at no trivial expence. Not led by vanity, nor encouraged by the hope of gain to commence author, he at first thought only of me thodizing his thoughts, and claffing his obfervationins to fome order for the ufe of his friends: but when he was once engaged, the fubject ripened in his hands, and, like the vegetables under his culture, grew more full and perfect by a nice and orderly arrangement. A genius, and a man zealous for his own reputation and the public fervice, cannot handle a favourite subject fuperficially. He entered into the vegetable properties of plants, their production writers on hufbandry, who, at prefent difgrace the fubject, and to direct the practical farmer, who is really in earneft to improve his farm, to the genuine fource from whence he may draw that true and experienced knowledge that may be fafely relied upon in practice; if that practice can be luckily introduced. ************* Cautions against the Practice of defar: ing Pictures by Picture-cleaners. production and nutrition, with the precifion of a philofopher; and he laid down the methods by which they were to be propagated with the knowledge of an old experienced husbandman. The inftruments, which, after various trials, he had found to answer the best, he caufed to be carefully conftructed, and he had them drawn and accurately defcribed by good artists, under his own infpection they were not filched, like later inftruments from one invention From the GENTLEMAN'S MAGAZINE. under pretence of fupplying the defects of another, with a view to acquire the reputation of a mechanic, but were all the genuine production of his own invention, tried and altered again and again till they actually performed with accuracy and facility the work they were intended to complete. Such are the instruments which Mr. Tull has exhibited, and which have been altered and disjointed, rendered imperfect, and utterly useless by pretended improvers both at home and abroad, who perhaps never faw the originals, and who had not genius to comprehend the drawings, much less to improve and render them more useful. But to conclude; if with all his labour, knowledge, and expence, Mr. Tull, the great father of the new hufbandry, could never fo far fucceed in his own practice as to make it the general culture of his farm, how little reason is there to expect that future adventurers will be more happy in their endeavours to facilitate its progrefs. It were, therefore imprudent in gentlemen of fortune to liften to the plausible reasonings, or pretended experiments of common hackney writers, who not having the means of inftructing themselves or the public in the practice of an art that requires the utmost application and genius to make perfect, content themJeives to mangle and new model the labours of others according as the bookfeller directs, or their own intereft is in view. The intention of this fhort effay, is to prevent gentlemen from attending to the fuperficial nonfenfe of the numerous W E were informed the other day, by a paragraph in the publick papers, that Carlo Vanloo, painter to the king of France, was arrived in England on purpose to see the many capital paintings of the greatest masters, with which we are told this kingdom abounds. But in the conclufion of the paragraph it is faid, that in doing this he would, in all likelihood, meet with many diffi. culties. What these difficulties are we were not informed, nor can I guess, unlefs the trouble and expence attending the feeing these things. These indeed are great, fo that many perfons who would be glad to fee them, do not think it worth their while to pay this double tax. The fawning cringing addreffes to those who have it in their power to fhew them, together with their gaping expectations of what you will give them, is very agreeable; and what is ftill worse, if you do not fatisfy them according to their liking, it is ten to one but you are infulted. However, when M. Vanloo is informed of thefe fcandalous customs of ours, he may remove one difficulty, by taking care not to go to these places with empty pockets. But there is another difficulty much more difficult to furmount? Many of our modern collectors, through their impatience in collecting, and their eager defire of being thought great judges in painting, have fallen into all the traps and fnares of the picture dealers, who have put into their hands a parcel of trumpery copies inftead of originals, and thofe,which are dif fuck fuch are fo defaced by being rubbed half out, and painted over again by fome defpicable wretch of a painter, under the notion of cleaning them, as to render them not worth one farthing. Now, I fay, thefe people will perhaps be very glad to prevent a man of Mr. Vanloo's judgment from feeing them, left he fhould discover their foible, and inftead of admiring their judgment, only laugh at their folly. However, be this as it will, it is vertain he must meet with many difappointments. All artifts know to what a wretched condition most of our collections are reduced, by their undergo ing the various operations of a fet of miscreants, called Picture cleaners; men who, for the generality, know no more of painting than a Hottentot, and confequently know not when they are doing good or hurt to a picture. Who could ever imagine that colourmen, cabinet-makers, frame-makers, brokers, and house painters, could have the affurance to undertake so nice an affair as to put to rights a damaged pic ture, a thing that requires the utmost skill of the best painter we have. But when we confider that the judgment of the owners is generally upon a par with that of the cleaners, it is no longer to be wondered at, that they should fuffer themselves to be perfuaded to entruft things of this consequence in the hands of fuch ignorant pretenders. The glaring appearance a picture makes when it first comes out of the hands of these men, by the help of their varnishes, gains very much upon the eye of one who is ignorant of the true excellence of a painting, and who is apt to think a miracle has been wrought upon it, never fufpecting the picture to be irrecoverably ruined; but this time foon difcovers, and the owner then fees with regret what pains and expence he has been at to render a fine picture good for nothing. But the folly does not stop here; for by and by comes another as ignorant as the first, and tells him it was all owing to the ignorance of the first operator, if he will fend it to Mas, he will undo all the other has done, and reftore it to its original perfection." Then it is put into another Quack's hands, whe plays over the fame tricks the other had done, fo that between both there is not one third of the original painting remaining. Some, no doubt, have efcaped this fate, but then many nt of thefe are valued more for the name of the painter, than for any intrinfick merit in the pictures themselves, being badly painted, and much inferior to many of our modern paintings.' Of fuch pieces as these most of our modern collections confift, and hence arifes the disappointment a person of real judgment often meets with in going to fee them; he finds perhaps two or three hundred pictures, and does not fee three worth looking at amongst them all. Some few fine ones we have still remaining amongst us without difpute, which have had the good fortune to escape the hands of these men, but most of thefe are.deposited in country feats far distant from town; as for those in and about this metropolis, they are almost all demolished, and it is certain, if this infatuation of our collectors continues a few years longer, we shall not have one picture left in the kingdom worth notice; and in all probability this will be the cafe, for this practice is arrived to fuch a length, that no picture bought at an auction, or elsewhere, must be sent home before it is fent to the picture cleaners, and the owner will take as much pride in letting you know who cleaned it, as who painted it. Methinks I hear some of your readers cry out, "What then are all pictures utterly fpoiled that are undertaken to be cleaned; muft all be ruined that are attempted to be mended and repaired?" I answer, not when put into the hands of a man of judgment, and a good painter, who can preferve and retore them; but even fuch an artist cannot equally benefit all, for some are in fo bad a condition, through the ill ufage they have met with from their |