INTER ODU CTAION.

AGRICULTURE, though it has probably made a greater progrefs in this than moft other countries, is{till far from having attained that degree of perfection which might have been expected, and of which it is capable:—much remains to be effected in almoft every branch. If the ftate of the art be examined with attention, it will be found that though in particular diftri€ts and fituations its

principles and operations may have been well underftood, and the lands of courfe-

have been conducted under an improved ftate of cultivation; yet, that on the whole, but a very{mall portion of the cultivated part of the ifland has even at this advanced period been brought under a judicious and well-conducted fyftem of hufbandry. Immenfe tra¢ts of land of the more rich and fertile kinds may ftill be met with in different parts of the kingdom that are managed in very imperfect and difadvantageous methods of farming. It has been ftated by an able writer* that Great Britain contains fixty-feven millions of acres; feven millions of which are taken up by houfes, roads, rivers, lakes,&c., confequently incapable of cultivation; and that of the remaining fixty millions, only five millions are employed in raifing grain, and twenty-five millions in pafturage, while thirty millions are either completely in a ftate of wafte, or cultivated“‘ under a very defective fyitem of hufbandry.”

But it is not merely in regard to the cultivation of the foil that the advancement of the art has been fo flow and confined; in other departments or branches its progrets has been equally limited. In the management of meadow and pafture-lands, and

the improvement of the breeds of different kinds of domeftic animals, except. in

.

* Sir John Sinclair.