Bil INTRODUCTION,

to enter into any full or elaborate difcuffions refpecting then; but merely to bring them to the notice of the agricultor.

it is eafy to perceive that a variety of obfiructions muft have been thrown in the way of agricultural improvement, by thofe flow and imperceptible changes that are continually taking place in the fituation and circumftances of a country, by which laws, regulations, and reftriction that were once proper and ufeful, become in the courfe of time highly detrimental and improper.[rom this caufe it is that the early regulations that were made in refpec to the management of lands in this ifland, are fo badly adapted for promoting the advantages of bufbandry at the prefent period. his is fully exemplified in the cafe of commons.‘The ground in fuch inftances does not merely lay in the ftate of wafie, being debarred and deprived of undergoing any cultivation, although frequently very capable of admitting of it,. but it is detrimental by preventing improvements in the adjoining lands from being carried on in the moft complete manner and with the fulleft effect, as well as by being

expofed to injuries of the moft baneful kind by the cutting away and removal of its.

furface, the finking of pits, the ftagnation of water, as well as a thoufand other prac- tices, while the nation derives not the fmalleft advantage from it im return. for fuch a fy ftem of deterioration.

But it is not only in this point of view that commons are prejudicial er ufelefs;:

they are a kind of property that has much effect in injuring the morals of the poorer: claffes of inhabitants. who claim rights on them, by engendering quarrels. and’

difputes, and relaxing thofe habits of induftry, economy and. exertion, whichare ef- fential to. the labourer in hufbandry, by holding out to-him a fallacious means of. fubfiftence.

There is alfo a kind of commonable property which in fome counties appears, from: the late excellent furveys that have been made, to be nearly one half of their whole

arable territory; in which each individual knows indeed the limits of the lands:

that he poffeffes, but is under the neceflity of fubmitting to certain regulations and’ reftrictions that cuftom. has eftablifhed, however abfurd er difadvantageous they

may be in the cultivation and: management of them. This circumftance, inftead of

exciting the farmer to induftry and improvement, tends very materially to leffen. his exertions and introduce flovenly modes of practice highly prejudicial to the interefts of agriculture, Lands conducted under fuch a fyftem of management: cannot probably be made to produce one half the quantity. of grain.or other fub-. flances, which they might be made to.do under improved. methodsof cultiyation.