Technology Adaptation: Agricultural Revolution in 17th–19th-Century Britain 263Young was, however, aware of the need to crosscheck by triangulating the
information he gathered: ‘I met with some farmers who gave me accounts too
improbable to credit ... but always repeated my enquiries upon those occasions’
(Young, quoted in Allen and O’Grada, 1988). Young drew attention to the benefits
of careful observation: ‘I have seen many men, who view the farms of other people,
apparently for no other purpose than to seek opportunity of talking of their own
... You walk through a whole farm with such people, without their acquiring one
idea ... I was once with a party viewing a farm. Two gentlemen ... were so diffuse
in describing their own farms and management that it was with the greatest diffi-
culty that poor Reynolds (the farmer) could gain the least attention. When ... they
went, I requested to go back to a crop of his turnip-rooted cabbage, which we had
passed without notice, owing to the volubility with which I was so ill entertained.
Various particulars I then gained, highly deserving attention. I afterwards met one
of those gentlemen in London, and could not but smile at finding that he was
perfectly ignorant even of the existence of the plant in question, of which he might
have ... been informed of every circumstance of its culture if he would for a few
minutes, have given attention to the objects before him’ (Young, 1793a).
William Cobbett was also determined to find out the ‘real state’ of the coun-
tryside. Writing after his first day’s travel from London, his view of observations
made from roads are clear. In spite of drizzling rain, he said: ‘It is true that I could
have gone to Uphusband by travelling only about 66 miles, and in the space of
about eight hours. But, my object was, not to see the inns and turnpike-roads, but
to see the country; to see the farmers at home, and to see the labourers in the fields;
and to do this you must go either on foot or on horseback’ (his emphases) (Cob-
bett, 1830). He travelled by horse along the lanes and paths, talking to people,
stopping at cottages. He was aware that this behaviour was unconventional: ‘They
think you are mad if you express your wish to avoid turnpike roads ... I have
crossed nearly the whole country from the northwest to the southeast, without
going 500 yards on a turnpike road, and, as nearly as I could do it, in a straight
line’ (Cobbett, 1830).
Bad weather did not stop these tourers from talking to farmers and labourers
in the field, who could not themselves stop work just because of the rain. On a wet
day in August, Cobbett recorded that ‘I made not the least haste to get out of this
rain. I stopped, here and there, as usual, and asked questions about the corn, the
hops, and other things’ (Cobbett, 1830). Young was also more concerned with
learning from farmers than with physical comfort. On the last day of a short tour
of Norfolk, one of his two French colleagues recorded that ‘it rained so much that,
to tell the truth, one could hardly think of agriculture’ (de La Rochefoucauld,
1784). But Young stopped at the farm of Mr Toosey, took ‘a hasty walk over his
excellently cultivated farm’, and recorded four pages of detailed findings – in which
the weather was mentioned not once (Young, 1784a).