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Under one or other of these heads, every point of real im- portance, that can tend to promote the general happiness of a great nation, seems to be included.
Investigations of so extensive and so complicated a nature, must require, it is evident, a considerable space of time be- fore they can be completed. Differing, indeed, in many re- spects from each other, it is better perhaps that they should be undertaken at different periods, and separately considered. Under that impression, the Board of Agriculture has hitherto directed its attention to the first point only, namely, the culti- vation of the surface, and the resources to be derived from it.
That the facts essential for such an investigation, might be collected with more celerity and advantage, a number of intelligent and respectable individuals were appointed, to fur- nish the Board with accounts of the state of husbandry, and the means of improving the different districts of the kingdom. The returns they sent were printed, and circulated by every means the Board of Agriculture could devise, in the districts to which they respectively related; and in consequence of that circulation, a great mass of additional valuable informa- tion has been obtained. For the purpose of communicating that information to the Public in general, but more especially to those counties the most interested therein, the Board has resolved to reprint the Survey of each County, as soon as it seemed to be fit for publication; and among several equally advanced, the counties of Norfolk and Lancaster were pitched upon for the commencement of the proposed pub- lication; it being thought most adviseable, to begin with one county on the Eastern, and another on the Western coast
of the island. When all these Surveys shall have been thus


