[Pg i]

Sir,

Having had the honor to spend nineteenyears in your service as resident Land Agent—havingduring that period, as well as since, receivedfrom you many marks of favour—havingon your Estate laid the foundation, and to someextent tested the accuracy, of the opinions whichare given in the following pages; I am, I assureyou, deeply grateful for the kind permission with[Pg ii]which you have favoured me, to dedicate themto you.

If I were to allow myself to indulge in theexpression of feelings, which a recollection of mylong connection with your Estates might prompt,I should risk your displeasure, for I well know,how distasteful to you would be the language ofadulation; I shall therefore only add, that it givesme pleasure to dedicate my Book to you, because,from long experience, I know you to be the zealouspatron of improvement in every departmentof rural economy, and because you are practicallyand intimately acquainted with the subject onwhich I have written.

Encouraging as it would be to me if it wereso, I do not expect that you will concur with mein all the views to which I have given expression:nevertheless, I trust I may be allowed[Pg iii]to hope that, in the main, the principles whichare developed will approve themselves to yourjudgment, and command your approbation.

I have the honor to be,

Sir,

Your most obedient obliged Servant,

J. WEST.

North Collingham, Notts.
13th June, 1842.

It has probably been with many others as itis with the writer of this, who finds the littlewhich he has to say by way of Preface, moredisagreeable, and more difficult, than he has foundany other part of his book. A Preface, however,of some sort or other, must be written.

The writer cannot say, as some have done,that he has pushed off his bark, and is contentto leave it to its fate—he does not pretend, withKent, the author of “Hints to Gentlemen of LandedProperty,” that “these hints are publishedfrom no motives of interest whatever”—on thecontrary he is ready to avow, that, while he would...