The great fault of the book is, (and it is the fault of a good many
books,) it does not prove what the author wants to prove. He had hoped
by a long-continued course of minute experiments (and those detailed in
his book count a thousand, and extend over a period of five years) to
lay down an exact law of procedure for the guidance of his
brother-farmers. But the brother-farmers did not weary themselves over
his tables; or if they did, they found themselves as much muddled as the
experimenter himself. A good rule for dry weather was a bad one for wet;
and what might be advisable for Suffolk would be wrong in Herts. Upon
one occasion, where he shows a loss of nearly three pounds to the acre
on drilled wheat, against a loss of two shillings fourpence on
broadcast-sowing, he observes,--"Reason is so often mistaken in matters
of husbandry, that it is _never fully_ to be trusted, even in deducing
consequences evident from experiment itself." By which we may safely
conclude that the experiment disappointed his expectations. It must be
remembered, however, that Mr. Young was quite youthful and inexperienced
at the time of conducting these trials, and that he possessed none of
that scientific accuracy which characterizes the analysis of
farm-experiments at Rothamstead or at Bechelbron. He says, with a
diverting sincerity, that he was never "absent more than a single week
at a time from the field of his observations without leaving affairs in
charge of a trusty bailiff." He was too full of a constitutional unrest,
and too much wedded to a habit of wide and rapid generalization, to
acquit himself well in the task of laborious and minute observation.

His "Tours" through the English counties, and his "Letters to Farmers,"
were of great service, and were widely read. His "Farmer's Calendar"
became a standard work. He entertained at one time the project of
emigrating to America; but, abandoning this, he enlisted as
Parliamentary reporter for the "Morning Post,"--walking seventeen miles
to his country-home every Saturday evening, and returning afoot every
Monday morning. His energy and industry were immense; his information
upon all subjects connected with agriculture, whether British or
Continental, entirely unmatched. The Empress of Russia sent three lads
to him to be taught the arts of husbandry,--at which, I venture, his
plodding neighbors who "made the ends meet" laughed incontinently. He
had also pupils from France, America, Ital