ESSAYS-1 [139]
the garden, are elegantly fitted up and kept with great care; and the cows, which are not only large, and remarkably beautiful, but are always kept perfectly clean, and in the highest condition, are an object of public curiosity. Those who are not particularly interested in the improvement of cattle, go to see them as beautiful and extraordinary animals; but farmers and connoisseurs go to EXAMINE them,--to compare them with each other,--and with the common breed of the country, and to get information with respect to the manner of feeding them, and the profits derived from them; and so rapidly has the flame of improvement spread throughout every part of Bavaria from this small spark, that I have no doubt but in a very few years the breed of horned cattle will be quite changed.
Not satisfied with the scanty supply furnished from the farm in the English garden, several of the nobility, and some of the most wealthy and enterprising of the farmers, are sending to Switzerland, and other distant countries famous for fine cattle, for cows and bulls; and the good effects of these exertions are already visible in many parts of the country.
How very easy would it be by similar means to introduce a spirit of improvement in any country! and where sovereigns do not make public gardens to bring together a concourse of people, individuals might do it by private subscription, or at least they might unite together and rent a large farm in the neighbourhood of the capital, for the purpose of making useful experiments. If such a farm were well managed, the produce of it would be more than sufficient to pay all the expenses attending it; and if the grounds and fields were laid out with taste--if good roads for carriages and for those who ride on horseback were made round it, and between all the fields--if the stables were elegantly fitted up--filled with beautiful cattle, kept perfectly clean and neat; and if a handsome inn were erected near the buildings of the farm, where those who visited it might be furnished with refreshment, it would soon become a place of public resort and improvements in agriculture would become A FASHIONABLE AMUSEMENT; the ladies even would take pleasure in viewing from their carriages the busy and most interesting scenes of rural industry, and it would no longer be thought vulgar to understand the mysteries of Ceres.
Why should not Parliament purchase, or rent such a farm in the neighbourhood of London, and put it under the direction of the Board of Agriculture? The expence would be but a mere trifle, if any thing, and the institution would not only be useful, but extremely interesting; and it would be an inexhaustible source of rational and innocent amusement, as well as of improvement to vast numbers of the most respectable inhabitants of this great metropolis.
In former times, statesmen considered the amusement of the public as an object of considerable importance, and pains were taken to render the public amusements useful in forming the national character.
An Account of the Measures adopted for putting an End to USURY at MUNICH.
Another measure, more limited in its operations than those before mentioned, but which notwithstanding was productive of much good, was adopted, in which a part of the treasure which was lying dead in the military chest was usefully employed for the relief of a considerable number of individuals, employed in subordinate stations under the government, who stood in great need of assistance.
A practice productive of much harm to the public service, as well as to individuals, had prevailed for many years in Bavaria in almost all the public departments of the state, that of appointing a great number of supernumerary clerks, secretaries, counsellors, etc. who, serving without pay, or with only small allowances, were obliged, in order to subsist till such time as they should come into the receipt of the regulated salaries annexed to their offices, to contract debts to a considerable amount; and as many of them had no other security to give for the sums borrowed,
Not satisfied with the scanty supply furnished from the farm in the English garden, several of the nobility, and some of the most wealthy and enterprising of the farmers, are sending to Switzerland, and other distant countries famous for fine cattle, for cows and bulls; and the good effects of these exertions are already visible in many parts of the country.
How very easy would it be by similar means to introduce a spirit of improvement in any country! and where sovereigns do not make public gardens to bring together a concourse of people, individuals might do it by private subscription, or at least they might unite together and rent a large farm in the neighbourhood of the capital, for the purpose of making useful experiments. If such a farm were well managed, the produce of it would be more than sufficient to pay all the expenses attending it; and if the grounds and fields were laid out with taste--if good roads for carriages and for those who ride on horseback were made round it, and between all the fields--if the stables were elegantly fitted up--filled with beautiful cattle, kept perfectly clean and neat; and if a handsome inn were erected near the buildings of the farm, where those who visited it might be furnished with refreshment, it would soon become a place of public resort and improvements in agriculture would become A FASHIONABLE AMUSEMENT; the ladies even would take pleasure in viewing from their carriages the busy and most interesting scenes of rural industry, and it would no longer be thought vulgar to understand the mysteries of Ceres.
Why should not Parliament purchase, or rent such a farm in the neighbourhood of London, and put it under the direction of the Board of Agriculture? The expence would be but a mere trifle, if any thing, and the institution would not only be useful, but extremely interesting; and it would be an inexhaustible source of rational and innocent amusement, as well as of improvement to vast numbers of the most respectable inhabitants of this great metropolis.
In former times, statesmen considered the amusement of the public as an object of considerable importance, and pains were taken to render the public amusements useful in forming the national character.
An Account of the Measures adopted for putting an End to USURY at MUNICH.
Another measure, more limited in its operations than those before mentioned, but which notwithstanding was productive of much good, was adopted, in which a part of the treasure which was lying dead in the military chest was usefully employed for the relief of a considerable number of individuals, employed in subordinate stations under the government, who stood in great need of assistance.
A practice productive of much harm to the public service, as well as to individuals, had prevailed for many years in Bavaria in almost all the public departments of the state, that of appointing a great number of supernumerary clerks, secretaries, counsellors, etc. who, serving without pay, or with only small allowances, were obliged, in order to subsist till such time as they should come into the receipt of the regulated salaries annexed to their offices, to contract debts to a considerable amount; and as many of them had no other security to give for the sums borrowed,