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Arthur Young and the Society of Arts1

Published online by Cambridge University Press:  03 February 2011

A. Y.
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For many years Arthur Young (1741–1820), greatest of all English agricultural publicists, was closely associated with the Society for the Encouragement of Arts, Manufactures, and Commerce, established in London in March 1754. Each year the Society of Arts, as it soon came to be called, offered premiums for desirable inventions and improvements in such diverse fields as agriculture, manufactures, chemistry, colonies and trade, and the polite arts. In his numerous books Young frequently commented on the activities of the Society, while the eight volumes of Young manuscript letters in the British Museum contain scattered references to his relations with the Society. A large portion of this article is based, however, upon the manuscript records of the Society of Arts, which I was permitted to examine and use through the courtesy of Mr. Charles Durant Cassidy, librarian and examinations officer, and Dr. Frank R. Lewis, assistant secretary. These records consist of minutes, letters, unpublished transactions, and especially records of the various committees which examined all applications for premiums and made the awards. Among the records are eight unpublished manuscript letters written by Young, two of which are reproduced as an appendix to this article.

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Articles
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The Journal of Economic History , Volume 1 , Issue 2 , November 1941 , pp. 129 - 152
Copyright
Copyright © The Economic History Association 1941

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References

2 Cf. SirWood, Henry T., A History of the Royal Society of Arts (London, 1913)Google Scholar, a semi-official account. Much material on the early history of the Society may also be found in Dossie, R., Memoirs of Agriculture and other Oeconomical Arts (3 vols., London, 1768, 1771, 1782)Google Scholar, which contains lists of premiums, a brief history of the Society, and the details of many projects for which premiums were given. Dossie's work was given official sanction by the Society and served in place of regular Transactions which did not appear until 1783. There is an admirable brief account of the work of the Society of Arts in Bowden, W., Industrial Society in England towards the End of the Eighteenth Century (New York, 1925), 38–44Google Scholar.

3 British Museum Additional Manuscripts 35, 126–135, 133. These volumes contain chiefly letters to Young. Nearly everything of interest for this article is in Mss. 35, 126.

4 The Autobiography of Arthur Young, edited by Betham-Edwards, M. (London, 1898), 29, 30Google Scholar. Cf. also “Memoirs of the last thirty years of the Editor's Farming Life” in Annals of Agriculture, 1791, XV, 154, 155Google Scholar. On his mother's death in 1785 the estate at Bradfield passed into Arthur Young's hands.

5 Autobiography, 29.

6 The account of these experiments is found in A. Young, A Course of Experimental Agriculture, 4 vols. in 2 (London, 1770). Many of the experiments were badly executed and his methods of accounting were severely criticized. In the encyclopedic manuscript which he left at his death, The Elements of Agriculture, which has never been published, Young confessed, “… it is not without the deepest regret, that I reflect on some of those works, in which I hazarded what I was pleased to call experiments, by which I deceived both myself and others.” Add. Mss. 34, 859, f. 406.

7 Society of Arts, Committee Report Books, 1764–1765, f. 36, 1766–1767, f. 9. Cf. also Dossie, I, 9, 13. Later in the same volume (40–46), Dossie points out that the encouragement given to the cultivation of madder was aimed less at a profitable crop for the farmer than at making the English manufacturer independent of the high prices and uncertain quality of imported Dutch madder.

8 Course of Experimental Agriculture, IV, 253–265.

9 The Theatre of the Present War in North America: With Candid Reflections on the great Importance of the War in that part of the World (London, 1758); Reflections on the Present State of Affairs at Home and Abroad (London, 1759).

10 Museum Rusticum et Commerciale: Or, Select Papers on Agriculture, Commerce, Arts and Manufactures, IV, No. 8, 58–65. This article was reprinted, as part of the Sylvae, in Young, A., The Farmer's Letters to the People of England …, to which are added Sylvae: or Occasional Tracts on Husbandry and Rural Oeconomics (3d ed., Dublin, 1768), 456–479.Google Scholar

11 Museum Rusticum, IV, 65.

12 The Farmer's Letters, 211–253.

13 Ibid., 215. Lucerne was the name used in the eighteenth century for alfalfa.

14 Ibid., 221.

15 Ibid., 233–244.

16 Ibid., 244.

17 Dossie, I, xi.

18 Autobiography, 52, 53.

19 Dossie, II, 201.

20 Society of Arts, Minute Books, XIV, f. 53. There is a picture of the medals given by the Society in Wood, History of Society of Arts, opposite p. 314.

21 Committee Reports, 1768–1769, ffs. 30, 31.

22 Ibid., ffs. 32, 35; Minute Books, XIV, f. 53.

23 Committee Reports, 1768–1769, f. 35.

24 The published essay included several other experiments besides those for which Young had been awarded the premium. On October 11, 1769, the Society voted thanks to Young for a copy of his Essay on Hogs (cf. Minute Books, XV, f. 3). The original essay with some additions is also reprinted in Dossie, II, 201–229. Apparently in some way or other part of Young's essay was also printed “surreptiously” in some periodical publication (cf. Dossie, II, 201).

25 Society of Arts, Guard Book A—1760–1779.

26 Minute Books, XIV, f. 53.

27 Ibid., XIV, ff. 74, 75.

28 Ibid., XIV, f. 75.

29 Autobiography, p. 99. I have been unable to find out much about John Arbuthnot. Miss Betham-Edwards, in the Autobiography (footnote, p. 66), believes him to have been a member of the family of the Viscounts Arbuthnot. There are many references to him in the Autobiography and several manuscript letters from him in the British Museum Add. Mss. 35, 126. These letters in vile handwriting exhibit a strong sense of humor and a warm friendship for Young. In his Farmer's Tour through the East of England (4 vols., London, 1771), II, 251–560, Young gives an exhaustive account of Arbuthnot's agricultural experiments. When Young submitted the proof to Arbuthnot, the latter replied, “… but my Good man, surely you spin me out too long, but you best know, don't think me impertinent, but will people have the patience to go through such scenes of damned bad husbandry—many of the courses are so infernal bad. I must beg you to give the reasons which obliged me to pursue them or I fear not much credit will be given to your attentive cultivator as you call him.” (Add. Mss. 35, 126, ffs. 105–106.) Arbuthnot was notable especially for his successful cultivation of madder and his invention of agricultural implements. Later Arbuthnot received an appointment through Lord Loughborough to the Irish Linen Board, but he lived only a few years after going to Ireland (Autobiography, 98–99).

30 Committee Reports, 1768–1769, f. 44.

31 Ibid., 1768–1769, f. 46, 1769–1770, f. 12.

32 Ibid., 1768–1769, f. 42.

33 Ibid., f. 48.

34 Ibid., 1769–1770, f. 11.

35 Ibid., f. 15. It is possible that Young may have confused rape with coleseed. There is an article in Dossie, II, 91–128, in which he says that the confusion was common, and claims that even the Society had “been led, through ignorance, or some blunder, into a mistake with respect to this point.”

36 Young, A., Letters concerning the Present State of the French Nation, with a complete comparison between France and Great Britain (London, 1769), 457.Google Scholar

37 Committee Reports, 1769–1770, f. 23.

38 Ibid., f. 62. There is a fairly long account of Reynolds's agriculture in the Farmer's Tour, III, 60–85. Reynolds was noted especially for his introduction of the turnip rooted cabbage. Dossie prints two articles by Reynolds on the cultivation of the turnip rooted cabbage (I, 421–442; II, 41–53), and another article by him on a method of brining corn to prevent smut (II, 129–139). Young said that Reynolds was “active and spirited and richly deserves to be had in esteem by all the lovers of good husbandry” (Farmer's Tour, III, 85). Although the Committee Reports state that the Committee was not satisfied with the Triple Horse Hoe, Young speaks quite favorably of it and inserts a plate of it (Farmer's Tour, III, plate 22, figure 3, opposite p. 83).

39 Minute Books, XVI, f. 36.

40 Society of Arts, Letters Received, 1770–1773, f. 20.

41 Society of Arts, Transactions, 1770–1771. Lord Romney was the president of the Society of Arts, 1761–1793. John Wynn Baker (d. 1775) was a prominent agriculturist who conducted an experimental farm in the service of the Royal Dublin Society, and was on friendly terms with Young who greatly admired him. There are several references in Young's works to Baker's experiments. Cf. A Course of Experimental Agriculture, I, xvi; A Tour in Ireland: with General Observations on the Present State of that Kingdom … (2 vols., Dublin, 1780), I, 20–21; Annals of Agriculture, I, 89–108. Thomas Butterworth Bayley (1744–1802) was an active prison and sanitary reformer and one of the leading spirits of the Lancashire Agricultural Society. There are several letters from him in the Young manuscripts in the British Museum, and some account of his agriculture in A Six Months' Tour through the North of England (4 vols., London, 1771), III, 194–211. Benjamin Franklin had become a corresponding member of the Society in 1756, an ordinary member later, and in 1761 he had accepted the chairmanship of the Committee on Colonies and Trade. Cf. Frank R. Lewis, “Benjamin Franklin and the Society of Arts,” in Pennsylvania History, VI, 14–19.

42 Letters Received, 1770–1773, f. 93.

43 Farmer's Tour, II, 212.

44 Ibid., 213.

45 Minute Books, XVI, ff. 76, 77.

46 Annals of Agriculture, 1, 113–119.

47 Committee Reports, 1772–1773, ffs. 40, 42.

48 Annals of Agriculture, I, 113. More was secretary from 1769 to 1799. His machine was given a premium in 1772. Cf. Transactions of the Society … for the Encouragement of Arts, Manufactures, and Commerce, 1783, 1, 312.

49 The Rotherham plough was one of the most famous improved ploughs of the eighteenth century and was popular in the Midlands. Cf. Seebohm, M. E., The Evolution of the English Farm (Cambridge, Mass., 1927), 302Google Scholar, and Ernie, Lord (R. E. Prothero) English Farming, Past and Present (London, 1912), 202, 208Google Scholar. Mr. Ducket had a large farm at this time at Petersham, Surrey, and later at Esher. He was also George III's bailiff at Windsor. His trenching plough was one of the implements preserved in the Repository of the Society. Cf. Dossie, II, 330. Young gave accounts of Ducket's improvements in the Farmer's Tour, II, 242–247, the Annals of Agriculture, X, 186–198, and XVII, 161–167, and in a much later pamphlet, On the Husbandry of Three Celebrated British Farmers, Messrs. Bakewell, Arbuthnot, and Ducket (London, 1811). There are also two articles on Ducket's “mode of cultivation” by no less a personage than George III, writing in the Annals of Agriculture under the pseudonym, Mr. Ralph Robinson (VII, 65–71, 332–336). There are plates and descriptions of several of Arbuthnot's ploughs in the Farmer's Tour, II, 498–560.

50 Annals of Agriculture, I, 117. Cf. also Dossie, III, 453, and Transactions of the Society, I, 312. There is no indication in the account in the Annals that Young was dissatisfied with the results of these trials, but the following note from the appendix of the Farmer's Tour, IV, 476–477, gives quite a different impression: “I have been present at some of these committee trials, and am clearly of opinion, that not one in ten is worth a groat; for what analogy is there between the trial of an instrument in turning a furrow or two or performing any other operations by a stop watch, and the usual execution during a common day's work?”

51 Autobiography, 59.

52 Committee Reports, 1771–1772, f. 31. Alexander Fordyce was the banking member of this famous family, and had a fine estate at Roehampton. He was in serious financial difficulties in this year, and soon afterwards absconded. His firm suspended payment on June 10, 1772.

53 Committee Reports, 1771–1772, ffs. 31, 37. On April 2, Young visited his friends and relations, the Burneys, after the meeting of the Committee on Mechanics, and the novelist, Fanny Burney, recorded in her diary, “Mr. Young dined with Sue and me today. Fortune, I hope, smiles on him again, for he again smiles on the world.” Cf. The Early Diary of Fanny Burney (London, 1889), I, 157.

54 Transactions, 1771–1772. This letter is printed in Dossie, III, 26–29. Dossie also printed several other letters on the Siberian barley. Most of the accounts, several by competent farmers, were enthusiastic, and Young's was the only one which was strongly critical.

55 Transactions, 1771–1772. This letter is reproduced below as Letter I.

56 Cf. for example, A Course of Experimental Agriculture, I, 34, 35, Annals of Agriculture, XVI, 595, 596, and The Farmer's Guide in Hiring and Stocking Farms (2 vols., London, 1770), I, pp. vi, vii, 21, 342, 343; II, 37, 268, 269.

57 Committee Reports, 1771–1772, f. 18; Transactions, 1771–1772.

58 Add. Mss. 35, 126, ffs. 119–121, 138–141, 142.

59 Ibid., i. 142.

60 Committee Reports, 1772–1773, ffs. 29, 32, 34, 35, 38, 40, 42, 45.

61 Autobiography, 63.

62 Committee Reports, 1772–1773, f. 28. These potatoes were also known as the Howard potatoes, because they had been introduced by the famous prison reformer, John Howard. Young had met Howard in 1772. Cf. Autobiography, 59, 60.

63 Committee Reports, 1772–1773, f. 29. Magellan (1723–1790) was a Portuguese scientist who came to England about 1764 and was active in the Royal Society. He and Young were on friendly terms. The Adam brothers were the architects for the building in the Adelphi to which the Society of Arts moved in 1774. Colonel Anthony St. Leger of Park Hill, near Bawtry, Yorkshire, was M.P. for Grimsby. There is an extended notice of his agricultural experiments in the Farmer's Tour, I, 257–296. William Fordyce (1724–1792) was the brother of the financier and one of the most noted physicians of his day. Dr. Richard Watson (1737–1816) was successively professor of chemistry and divinity at Cambridge, and later Bishop of Llandaff. Young knew Watson fairly well. He was one of the most notorious pluralists of the eighteenth century and spent most of his time while bishop at his farm in the Lake District.

64 Minute Books, XVIII, f. 2.

65 Add. Mss. 35, 126, f. 161.

66 Committee Reports, 1773–1774, f. 10.

67 Ibid., f. 10, 17, 25, 28.

68 Ibid., i. 46.

69 Transactions, 1774–1775. This letter is reproduced below as Letter II.

70 Young, A., Political Arithmetic, Containing Observations on the Present State of Great Britain; and the Principles of her Policy in the Encouragement of Agriculture (London, 1774), 173Google Scholar.

71 Ibid., 171–173.

72 Ibid., 173. It should be remembered that Young had received the gold medal for two of the above mentioned projects.

73 Ibid., 173.

74 Committee Reports, 1774–1775, ffs. 19, 28, 32, 35, 38, 42, 45, 46, 52, 54; 1775–1776, ffs. 1, 3, 6, 8.

75 Ibid., 1774–1775, ffs. 19, 46.

76 Ibid., f. 52.

77 Ibid., 1775–1776, f. 8.

78 Ibid., ffs. 14, 23.

79 Annals of Agriculture, IV, 146. His trip through England to Holyhead is minuted in the Annals, IV, 138–190.

80 Tour in Ireland, II, 203.

81 Minute Books, XXII, f. 21.

82 Committee Reports, 1776–1777 ffs. 10, 12, 15, 23, 29.

83 Ibid., f. 29. There is a paper on the use of the Roman yoke for oxen, with a plate, in the Transactions of the Society, II, 81–93.

84 Robert King, later second Earl of Kingston (1754–1799).

85 Young's own account of his relations with Lord Kingsborough is found in the Autobiography, 76–81. It is all too brief and leaves many questions unanswered.

86 Transactions, 1779–1780 (date of December 20). There is some question whether he received the gold or silver medal for this essay. The manuscript Transactions, cited above, say that it was the silver medal. The printed Transactions of the Society, II, 6, declare that he received the gold medal, but in III, 30, where the account of the experiments is given, the silver medal is mentioned.

87 Transactions of the Society, III, 30–99. In volume IV of the Transactions, pp. 61–106, there is an account of Young's later experiments on the clustered potato, covering the years 1780–1784, when he was at Bradfield.

88 Transactions of the Society, III, 30–31.

89 Minute Books, XXV, f. 101.

90 Autobiography, 92. Young had been elected a Fellow of the Royal Society in 1774. Cf. Autobiography, 65.

91 Committee Reports, 1779–1780, ffs. 13, 20, 23, 27, 31.

92 Ibid., f. 20.

93 Ibid., i. 23.

94 The Board of Agriculture was established in 1793–1794. Young was its secretary from the time of its foundation until his death in 1820. The county reports constitute undoubtedly the most valuable achievement of the Board. Young wrote six of the reports himself. He was critical, however, of some of the men chosen for the project, and of the haste with which the president of the Board, Sir John Sinclair (1754–1835), attempted to rush it through. Cf. Autobiography, 242–243.

95 Autobiography, 427. William Marshall (1745–1818) is believed by some experts to have been a much better agriculturist than Young. Cf. Ernie, 196–197; N. Riches, The Agricultural Revolution in Norfolk (Chapel Hill, 1937), 6. Young clearly recognized Marshall's ability and paid tribute to it. Cf. Autobiography, 427, Annals of Agriculture, XIV, 231. Marshall's greatest work consisted of his twelve volumes, A General Survey … of the Rural Oeconomy of England, 1787–1798. In the introduction to the volumes on Norfolk (The Rural Oeconomy of Norfolk, 2 vols., 2d. ed., London, 1795), I, iii-xiv, Marshall makes it clear that the basis for his masterpiece was the plan, which he quotes in full, submitted to the Society of Arts in 1780. Young reviewed the volumes on Norfolk at some length and with qualified approval (Annals of Agriculture, VII, 342–354). His failure to review promptly the volumes on the midland counties led to a charge of unfairness by a correspondent to the Annals (XIII, 226). Young apologized for his remissness and the review appeared in XIV, 231–252. Young criticized Marshall pretty strongly, however, for being given too much to generalization and too little to experiment.

96 Autobiography, 115. From Young's account it is impossible to tell when he sat for the portrait. The pictures were begun in 1777 and were not ready for public inspection until 1783. Cf. Transactions of the Society, II, 250. The only other time during the period when Young was surely in London for any length of time was during the spring of 1777. There is a reproduction of this picture opposite page 76 in Wood, History of Society of Arts. These wall pictures in the Society of Arts are probably the most important works of James Barry (1741–1806). For a time in the early eighties Young and Barry seem to have been quite intimate. Cf. Autobiography, 115–118.

97 Committee Reports, 1781–1782, f. 52.

98 Minute Books, XXVIII, ffs. 58, 61.

99 Add. Mss. 35, 126, f. 227.

100 Annals of Agriculture, I, 64, footnote.

101 Minute Books, XXIX, f. 85.

102 Committee Reports, 1783–1784, f. 230.

103 Such gifts were noted in Minute Books, XXXI, f. 6; XXXII, f. 6; XXXIII, f. 10; XXXVII, ff. 118, 136.

104 Autobiography, 59. Valentine Green (1739–1813) was one of the leading mezzotint engravers of his day. Sir Henry T. Wood (History of Society of Arts, p. 332) discusses the respective merits of the claims of Green and Young. He decides that the final decision was due to the efforts of Green.

105 Annals of Agriculture, II, 330.

106 Ibid., 324. From almost the very beginning of his writing Young had shown himself skeptical of the value of the drill method of sowing seed as contrasted with the broadcast method. Cf., for instance, his vicious attacks in 1770 upon the drill culture in A Course of Experimental Agriculture, IV, 269–306. Even in this work, however, he admitted that drilled beans were satisfactory. The review under question in the Annals shows that he was still suspicious of the drill husbandry in 1784. Professor Naomi Riches in her recent valuable study (117–118) cites many evidences of Young's “amusing reluctance to admit the superiority of drilling in the face of really overwhelming evidence,” even as late as 1792. In his manuscript Elements of Agriculture, which represents his most mature opinion, Young shows himself more favorable to drilling than in his earlier works. The invention of Cooke's drill machine removed many of his objections (Add. Mss. 34, 860, f. 248). This was the drill plough for which the Reverend James Cooke received a patent in 1789 and which Cooke described with a plate in the Annals (XIV, 20–50). Young also admitted that he had drilled his barley for many years and was satisfied “of the superiority of this method to the broadcast” (Add. Mss. 34, 860, f. 248). In respect to turnips he was not quite convinced, but he had come to consider horse hoeing “so much more effective” than hand hoeing that it furnished “a material inducement for preferring the drill culture ….” (Add. Mss. 34, 861, ffs. 34, 35).

107 Annals of Agriculture, IV, 279–283.

108 Ibid., XVII, 307–315.

109 The Farmer's Kalendar, 10th ed., (London, 1815), 650.

110 Minute Books, XXXI, f: 74.

111 Ibid., XXXIV, f. 82.

112 Minute Books, 1806–1807, f. 165.

113 Ibid., 1807–1808, f. 207. Apparently Young was making a claim for the premium, but the language of the minutes is not very clear.

114 Turnips, which Young usually spelled with an “e,” were a well-established crop in the more advanced regions by the time Young began to write. Carrots, cabbages, and potatoes were all new crops which he helped to establish. All four were used for feeding sheep and cattle and were especially valuable in the early spring when grass was scarce. All were used in place of a fallow.

115 Members of the Society were forbidden by the rules to accept a cash premium.

116 Later Young came to have a more favorable opinion concerning the merits of gypsum as a fertilizer. Cf. Annals of Agriculture, XVI, 184–185, for an experiment conducted in 1791, and Elements, Add. Mss. 34, 858, ffs. 279–281.

117 For many years Young sent a cart to London or Bury St. Edmunds to collect night soil to use as a fertilizer. Cf. Annals of Agriculture, III, 81, and Elements, Add. Mss. 34, 858, ffs. 301, 303.