- Brigade and squadron, whiten on the sight;
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And fill spectators with an awful joy.
- PLANTER, improvement1 is the child of time;
- What your sires knew not, ye their offspring know:
- But hath your art receiv’d Perfection’s stamp? [280]
- Thou can’st not say.——Unprejudic’d, then learn
- Of ancient modes to doubt, and new to try:
- And if Philosophy, with Wisdom, deign
- Thee to enlighten with their useful lore;
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Fair Fame and riches will reward thy toil. [285]
- THEN say, ye swains, whom wealth and fame inspire,
- Might not the plough, that rolls on rapid wheels,
- Save no small labour to the hoe-arm’d gang?
- Might not the culture taught the British hinds,2
- By Ceres’ son,3 unfailing crops secure; [290]
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Tho’ neither dung nor fallowing lent their aid?
- THE cultur’d land recalls the devious Muse;
- Propitious to the planter be the call:
- For much, my friend, it thee imports to know
- The meetest season to commit thy tops, [295]
- With best advantage, to the well-dug mould.
VER. 290. By Ceres’ son,] Jethro Tull, Esq; the greatest improver in modern husbandry.
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In the eighteenth century, improvement referred to the cultivation and development of lands for the purpose of making them more economically valuable. Increasingly, philosophers, government officials, and others also came to believe that there was a moral imperative for individuals to improve their land, since it could lead to increased crop and food production, which in turn would prevent famine and other social ills. Improvement was tied up with imperial agendas of dispossession as well, however: it was often argued that indigenous peoples did not improve their lands and therefore did not have a right to continue using and living on them. ↩︎
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A hind is a farm servant or agricultural laborer. ↩︎
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By Ceres’ son, Grainger means Jethro Tull (1674-1741), an English agricultural innovator and writer who was known for authoring the work Horse-Hoeing Husbandry (1731). Ceres is the Italo-Roman goddess of growth and agriculture. ↩︎