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and are fuccefsfully given to fheep, and even horfes. The experiments with us, of both coleworts and rape as a food for cattle, have been very various, and even contradictory, upon different foils, and under different management; and although I have seen a fair crop of both, and even a large crop of the latter, without the help of manure, it has been upon rich land; and I mult be bold enough, notwithstanding some confident affertions on the favourable fide, to doubt the rational probability of any fuch good fortune upon poor, or even middling foils.

Of rape and coleworts, rape is much fuperior, in both quantity and fattening quality; it alfo may be fed off by fheep turned in at Michaelmas, which being withdrawn about Old Candlemas, and the ftalks of the plants mowed even, the additional advantage of a crop of feed may be expected. In truth, the moft advantageous culture of rape, is for the feed entirely. The proper application of both plants is, as feed for fheep and lambs, milchcows, and store cattle. Pigs will eat them as rough victuals. I have never obferved it, but have heard of cows being hoven from eating colefeed, in the fame manner as from green clover: nor do I altogether agree as to the alledged excellence of the butter from cows fed with this article: perhaps my palate may be too nice. In feeding off thefe crops, particularly on poachy foils, it is infinitely better to cut carry them to the homeftead, or to a dry pasture, than to turn in the cattle.

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The fingle object of advantage in thefe articles, and their fuperiority, lie in the certainty of food in March and April, when even the best and hardiest cabbages may have been totally rotted and destroyed by the severity of the froft; elfe a crop of winter cabbages, producing more than double or treble the weight, and requiring neither more manure nor more expenfive culture, muft be vaftly preferable. To obviate all rifk, a few years back, being heavy laden with stock, I divided my land proportionally between cabbages (feed from New-crofs-turnpike, near London) and colefeed; the froft was not very fevere; the cabbages were all eaten, and part of the colefeed; the remainder producing a very good crop of feed at Michaelmas. Your correfpondent being of Bedfordshire, I should have fuppofed his land would produce CARROTS; our beft winter refource, and a favourite article with that illuftrious and able cultivator, his Grace of Bedford.

Seed can best be procured of the London feedfigen; and, in cafe of fcarce arti

cles, there is no doubt but an enquirer would receive polite attention at the office of the Board of Agriculture.

For the ANJOU CARBAGE or COLEWORT, I fowed both in Auguft and March, upon the proper tilth for cabbages in general, and with moderate dreffing; I put in BORECOLE, or SCOTCH KAIL, at the fame periods; the feed was fowed in a warm feed-bed, and the heads, or beft of the plants, as foon as fufficiently large, tranfplanted for good into the field, where they were conftantly hand-hoed, and earthed up, as often as neceffary: diftance two feet and a half afunder. The cattle began upon them in October, and fome of them were in ufe in the fpring; but the quantity very light. I did not perceive any very material difference between the autumnal and fpring fowing; but the French cultivators affert, that in order to get a large and valuable crop of coleworts, it is neceffary to fow as early as June in a rich feed-bed; in which cafe, they will be in perfection the following fummer, and continue of the utmost use all the enfuing winter and fpring, even to May. After all, as a risk crop, I would advise the trial of them at only one foot afunder, in which method they would perhaps produce the largeft quantity of eatable stuff.

COLESEED will grow upon almost any foil, tolerably manured; but fucceeds belt upon the ftrong, clayey and deep, with deep ploughing. The fallow ought to be ftirred early in the fpring; again, early in April, then harrowed down and manured; crofs ploughed in May, and brought into a fine tilth by the beginning of July. With the first fhower, fow half a peck an acre; the feed is scattered with the three fingers, broad-caft, and the land lightly harrowed and rolled. In September, the crop is treated precifely in the ftile of the turnep culture, the plants being fet out at a foot diftance, which cofts three fhillings per acre: in fome parts the plants may be left thicker, as a referve for others where they fail, which fhould be filled up in October, or the beginning of November. The beft remedy against the depredations of the flugs, which are particularly fond of this plant, is a mixture of flacked lime and woce afhes; of which, ten of the foriner, and fifteen of the latter, fuffice an acre. When this crop is fed, the land may be ploughed early in the spring, with a profpect for a good crop of barley. Rape is, however, not deemned an ameliorating crop, but fucceeds beft as a follower of fuch.

When intended for feed only, the plants are cut in September, and threfhed on a

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floor in the field, covered with a large cloth. The produce is from 3 to 6 quarters per acre. In Effex, the farmers commonly job the reaping, threfhing, dreffing, making the floor, aud facking the feed, at 6d. per bufhel; at which rate, the men are well paid, the crop being good. To make a good fample, the feeds ought to be large, black, and free from red or dulky ones. Should the crop be long before fale, it will require a very dry place, or the fample will lofe its colour, and in courfe much of its price.

I have thus, Sir, anfwered your correfpondent's queries, fomewhat at large; and fhould be happy at any future occafion, to render fimilar finall fervices to a Mifcellany, the moral and useful tendencies of which coincide entirely with the fentiments of

Your obedient, humble fervant,
A PRACTICAL FARMER.

Jan. 20, 1798.

To the Editor of the Monthly Magazine.

SIR,

H

AVING feveral years been in the regular practice of keeping a regifter of the quantity of rain which has fallen at the end of every month, I trou

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ble you with a copy from the year 1791 to 1798 inclufive. The Rain, as it falls, paffes through a funnel a foot fquare at the top, into a tin receiver in the shape of a bottle, which appears not to admit of much evaporation in the hottest seafon ; one pint correfponds very near to a quarter of an inch deep from the furface; confequently 160 pints in 1796 answer to 40 inches in the whole of that year. Divide any of the months, or the whole year, by 4, and it exhibits the depth of the rain, and the vaft difference of wet and dry in the whole of each year.

It is worthy of your readers attention, that in the months of September, October and November 1794, there fell 982 pints, very little lefs than in the whole of the years 1791 and 1793. - Thefe heavy rains caufed an high water, which inundated the lower part of this city; in many of the houfes there were between 2 and feet water; and boats rowed in feveral principal ftreets, to give them fupplies into their upper windows. A great fnow the January following, caufed a ftill higher water, and muít, but for the liberality of the inhabitants, have been infupportable by the poor and their diftreffed families. Norwich, 14 Jan. 1799.

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THE ENQUIRER, No. XVI. IN WHAT DEGREE IS THE FUTURE MELIORATION OF THE STATE OF MANKIND PROBABLE?

THAT man, who, during the course of a few late years, has not made very ferious reflections on the condition and profpects of his fellow-creatures; who has not been agitated with alternate hopes and fears, and felt his wishes and expec. tations in a state of perpetual tumult and fluctuation, mut either have been abforbed in ftupid and selfish indifference, or must have arrived at that ftate of fecurity concerning all human affairs which is the highest point of philofophy. For my own part, I have been far from either of thofe conditions. I have moft ardently fympathifed in the furrounding fcenes; but from the prefent view of things, I could wish that the tranquillity arifing not from indifference, but from philofophy, fhould fucceed to the painful fufpenfe and uneafy apprehenfions of a mind too strongly impreffed by actual events. This, too, may probably be the ftate of many readers of the Monthly Magazine. Let us then fee, if, by meditating on the paft and prefent ftate of mankind, we can difcover any principles which may reconcile us to what we behold, and fecure us for the future against the folly and the pain of expectations never likely to be gratified. The human race has now fubfifted fome thousand years, and under all the differences of climate and external circumftances that can be fuppofed incident to it. With refpect to what we call civilization, likewife, it feems to have undergone all the viciffitudes of which it is capable; for this has in a great many inftances been carried to a degree, which feems to have been the direct caufe of its own decline. States more commercial, more military, more polished, more luxurious, than have already exifted, are not likely again to appear on the theatre of the world. What then remains on which to found expectations of a new ftate of things, unless it be knowledge? This, in fact, is the prefent anchor of our hopes for a meliorated condition of mankind; it is therefore a matter of high importance to confider what that improvement in knowledge muft be which is to effect this defirable change, and what are the probabilities of its taking place.

Knowledge may, in a loose way, be divided into that which is a fource of happinefs in itself, and that which is a means of producing happiness. With refpect to the former, inasmuch as it contributes MONTHLY MAG. No. XL.

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to the enjoyment of individuals by affording interefting and agreeable occupations for their leifure, and by dignifying and exalting their natures, it cannot, I fear, be made a ground of much advantage to the great mafs of mankind. For too few in fociety can ever poffefs leifure and opportunity fufficient for the purfuit, or if they have thefe, will prefer the pleasures of knowledge to the more obvious ones flowing from the affections and the fenies, to render advances in literature and fcience the fource of much fubftantial benefit to the world. It may be added, that as it is purfuit and progrefs, rather than real attainment of any precife object, which gives the pleafure in this cafe, an advanced ftate of knowledge is not more favourable than an early and immature one, to the happiness of its votaries. Whatever may be the modern improvements in phyfics and metaphyfics, the ardour, and confequently the delight, with which they are purfued, cannot now be much greater than that felt by the philofophers of antiquity.

The other fpecies of knowledge is to be regarded as a means to an end; and, from the nature of mankind, formed capable of tranfinitting the experience and difcoveries of one generation to another, and thus making unlimited progress in the adaptation of the fittest means to the best ends, we may very reasonably expect an addition to the ftock of general good from this fource. But, in order to form fome eftimate of its amount, it will be first neceffary to confider of what ingredients human happiness is composed, and how far it lies within the power of man to add to, or diminish the general fum.

There is, indeed, an opinion that many feem fond of maintaining, which, if true, would render unneceffary every confideration of this fort, and induce us to fit down in perfect apathy: this is, that good and evil are fo equally balanced in all the different ftates and conditions of mankind, that what is gained on one fide, is loft on the other, and vice verfa; so that it can never be worth while to attempt a melioration, by which nothing can be really acquired in point of happinefs. And if happinefs be the true end and object of our being, it is certain that a change, which does not conduce to its augmentation, is but an idle wafte of our industry. But, furely, a fair and impartial furvey of the world can never lead to fuch a conclufion. Place happinefs as low as we pleafe-let it contit in mere animal enjoyments, and that fecurity of life and

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its comforts, and that freedom of action, which even a favage muft prize-and we cannot be infenfible of the fuperior advantages which some ftates of fociety offer in thefe refpects, over others. It it impoffible for any one feriously to fuppofe, that the American or English farmer, furrounded with plenty, which no one can hinder him from enjoying, and refting in full peace and tranquillity under the protection of ftrong and equal laws, is not an happier being than the cultivator of the Turkish dominions, who is forced to hide the little wealth he poffeffes, left it fhould be forcibly taken from him; and fears a brutal and infolent foe in the perfon of every one ftronger or better armed than himself. The difference here is nothing less than fanciful-it bears upon the folid comfort of every day, and comes home to the feelings of every human creature.

The happiness of man, as far as it applies to the whole fpecies, will probably never admit of a high or complex eftimate. Senfual gratifications, and the ordinary pleasures of focial and domeftic life, may be reckoned to compofe almost the whole of it. As already obferved, the wants of mankind are too many to allow to the majority leifure enough for intellectual purfuits; nor are the enjoyments arifing from that fource, fo ftrong and conftant in their attraction, as thofe from the two former. I have, therefore, no idea of a higher degree of happiness, attainable by a community, than that proceeding from abundance of the neceffaries and moft obvious conveniences of life, fairly fhared, and temperately used; from peace, fecurity, freedom of action, and mutual kindness and good offices. To thefe may be added, immu. nity from those fuperftitious terrors, and felf-tormenting practices, which have attended fo many forms of falfe religion. Now let us enquire how far the increase of knowledge accruing from experience, is likely to further thefe defirable objects among the great family of mankind.

Not much need be faid concerning the improvements in the common arts of life in this view. Being almoft all of them the offspring of neceffity, they can fcarcely do more than keep pace with the demands of that neceffity. Such is the natural increafe of the human fpecies when not checked by unfavourable circumftances, that there will be perpetual occafion for the full employment of the human abilities to prevent the fhare of good things already poffeffed by each individual from being diminished. The utmost improvement of agriculture can only give wholefome and palatable food

to greater numbers than are now fed from the fame extent of land: the like may be faid of all other branches of economics and manufactures, at least in every country where already enough has been discovered to make life comfortable. Moft countries in Europe might probably maintain a much larger population than they poffefs; but what has the fum of population to do with the happiness of the individuals which compofe it? This has long ago in China and Japan reached its maximum, and in confequences has pushed the more effential arts of life to a degree of perfection much beyond what we fee among ourselves; but it feems to have been very far from meliorating the condition of the species.

A much more promifing confequence of increafed knowledge, is the improvement to be expected from it in government, legislation, and all the contrivances by which a community are fecured in the enjoyment of those advantages which nature and induftry beftow. Here feems, indeed, to be a wide and almost boundless field for melioration; for old as the world is, how very few examples has it yet feen of civil inftitutions, purely and fairly framed with a view to the production of the greatest poffible good! How difficult it would be to name a fingle one in which partial interefts have not, in many important points, taken the lead of general interests! But, in order to know what improvements may be expected in this matter, it will be neceffary to confider what errors have been owing to ignorance, and what to ill inten tion. The former may perhaps admit a cure; the latter hardly can, unless the majority become fo enlightened concerning their interefts, and fo wife, fteady, and unanimous in the purfuit of them, as to overcome all that refiftance which the poffeffors of unlue advantages will always make to a change unfavourable to themfelves.

That ignorance on the part of rulers, in the true principles of legiflation, police, and the other branches of government, has been, and is, the caufe of much evil to nations, cannot be doubted. And as it muft be, upon the whole, the intereft of rulers to see their subjects flourishing and happy enough to be kept in good humour, there feems no reafon to doubt, that in proportion as prejudices and falfe conceptions give way to the gradual progrefs of truth, many improvements will be made in thefe particulars which will materially better the ftate of mankind. I make no queftion but much has been done during the courfe of the prefent century, to amend

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the diftribution of private juftice, to check the oppreffion of the great, and to fecure life and property to all the members of a ftate, in almost every country in Europe. Industry has been more encouraged, trade freed from many impolitic fhackles, punifhments rendered lefs cruel, and, in general, a more just and liberal spirit of internal government has been introduced. The rule of a Frederick and a Catherine, defpotic as the principles of both have been, cannot be denied to be much more lenient and better calculated to promote the public welfare, than that of their predeceffors.

All this is very well as far as it goes. But fince arbitrary rulers muft ever have an intereft nearer and dearer to them than the happiness of their fubjects, viz. that of their power, they will never willingly acquiefce in promoting the public improvement with respect to thofe points on which this power is founded. And as great part of the worst abufes in corrupt governments are intimately connected with the maintenance of the fovereign authority, it is vain to expect that they will ever be reformed till the people themselves come to underftand and purfue their own interefts. But here is the great difficulty. How is it poffible that the mafs of a nation fhould ever, in the hands of their old masters, become enlightened enough to comprehend their evils, and the remedies of them fhould be able peaceably to deliberate about them, and take proper fteps for their relief-fhould avoid the fnares of crafty demagogues, and purfue fteadily the right objects by the wifeft means; and, finally, amidst the unjuft oppofition they would be fure to meet with, fhould preferve their minds from that irritation which will in the end break out in acts of the most dreadful violence? Alas! have we not too well learned what a nation will do that rifes to revenge thofe injuries which either wisdom cannot, or felfifhnefs will not, redrefs in a proper time and manner? But they should have firft been enlightened, fay the friends of knowledge and liberty. How? when their meetings for inftruction are prevented by the bayonet; when the prefs is fhackled by penal restrictions; and when hired teachers tell the people that they have nothing to do with the laws but obey them? The melioration of mankind by means of political revolutions, is, indeed, a noble fubject of fpeculation; and I am far from afferting, that the hopes of patriots on this head are futile and vifionary; but, for my own part, I have only the wih left the confidence is gone,

But are there not modes in which increafed knowledge, may more quietly and and gradually meliorate the condition of mankind? May we not expect much from improved fyftems of morality?-for, morals being in fact nothing else than such a rule of life as will promote the greatest degree of happiness; and the art of living happily being as much an experimental art as any other, will it not be making a continual progrefs in human focieties, who can have no intereft fo dear to them as carrying it to perfection? This, undoubtedly, feems a plaufible deduction; but, I fear, an impartial furvey of hiftory will not permit us to be very fanguine in our expectations. Has it, in reality, appeared that either individuals or bodies of men, in proportion as they have advanced in those branches of knowledge which adorn and elevate the fpecies, have been more juft, more temperate, more beneficent?

What are the great moral evils under which mankind labour? Are they not, with refpect to ourselves, the indulgence of our appetites and paffions, and falfe eftimates of happinefs, proceeding from vicious affociations-with respect to others, the preference we give to our own interests above that of the community?—And are not these propenfities interwoven into our very nature, and only to be controuled by a long course of difcipline? Is the man of knowledge, to whom fo many new fources of enjoyment are opened, lefs likely to grasp with eagerness at the means of attaining thofe enjoyments, than the illiterate and eafily fatisfied peasant? Can luxury ever be feparated from refinement, avarice from commerce, or rapacity from power? It is granted, that a strong and enlightened fyftem of government may check many of the public mifchiefs which would flow from these fources; but how, without intolerable restraints upon freedom of action, fhall it prevent the private ones? Look at our manufacturing towns, and try to feparate, even in idea, the vices and miferies that overrun them, from the circumftance of a vast population compofed of artificers, who, if their wages are low muft employ their whole time in providing the neceffaries of life if high, will lie under temptations to excefs, which they have no principles that can enable them to refift. The almoft infuperable difficulties experienced in every plan for amending the ftate of the yearly increafing poor in great towns, fufficiently evinces the intimate connexion between private calamity, and what has always appeared to constitute public profperity. Ba

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