Natural Philosophy 189many would- be mathematicians, some women, honed their skills. One of
them was the pious schoolteacher Margaret Bryan.^42
Among the users of Hutton’s books for beginners or other guides to
arithmetic were agriculturalists intent upon increasing the yields of their
farms. The enclosure of farmlands, which rapidly accelerated after the
Seven Years’ War, amalgamated scattered strips into more manageable
holdings and made possible experiments in all aspects of agricultural prac-
tice. Improving farmers improved by rationalized cut- and- try: by varying
planting techniques and fertilizer recipes, quantifying input and output,
and exchanging information. Fundamental to it all was the so- called Nor-
folk system of mixed husbandry and crop rotation. New implements for
planting, hoeing, plowing, and harvesting; methods of soil improvement;
techniques of selective breeding; innovations in processing byproducts
like hides; and shops to keep everything in repair completed the appa-
ratus for scientifi c agriculture. In 1771, Arthur Young, soon to be a Fel-
low of the Royal Society, arrived in Norfolk on his travels to observe best
farming practice. He praised in particular the experimental methods of Sir
John Turner, whose son- in- law belonged to the family of Martin Folkes,
onetime president of the Royal Society, who were long- time improving
landowners in Norfolk.^43
Young continued his travels, spreading the word through books and
also in his Annals of agriculture, which offered farmers a forum for relating
their latest improvements. Among these contributors was King George III.
Whereas the base- born emperor of France fancied himself an astronomer
and mathematician, the royal- born king of England did not disdain to
improve the muck that made the wealth of his nation. In 1793, the further
to promote the increase and dissemination of agricultural science, the
landowners set up a Board of Agriculture with Young as its secretary. To
help alleviate the condition of the rural poor, the men around the Board
of Agriculture proposed to acquaint cottagers with effi cient ways to use
fuel, prepare food, and manage their allotments of land.^44 They had the
help of the cosmopolitan Count Rumford, an American Tory in the service
of the King of Bavaria. Rumford had a reputation for making nourishing
soups and smokeless fi replaces. He also had the reputation of a natural
philosopher. He visited England in 1798 in order to read to the Royal
Society, of which he was a Fellow, his memoir on the production of un-
limited heat from friction. He took the opportunity to draw up plans for
an institution to transmit, through lectures, the latest science of soups and
chimneys, and also of manuring, tanning, soap- making, and the like. The
Royal Institution opened in 1799. It was to make capital contributions to