74 DANGEROUS THOUGHTS

The design included a conspectus of all the principal tech-
nological problems which affected British mercantile supremacy
and the theoretical issue relevant to their solution. Of all these
"histories" the most illuminating compilation is the Heads of
Enquiries into the state of British Agriculture. Twenty-six major
questionnaires were printed that they might be "the more univer-
sally known" and that persons skilful in husbandry might be
"publickly invited to impart their knowledge herein for the
common benefit of the country." The topics included "the several
kinds of the soyls of England (sandy, gravelly, stony, clayie,
chalky, light mould, healthy, marish, boggy, fenny or cold
weeping ground)," when each was "employed for arable"; "what
peculiar preparations are made use of to these soyls for each kind
of grain, with what kind of manure they are prepared; when,
how and in what quantity the manure is laid on"; "what kinds
of ploughs are used"; "the kinds of grain or seed usual in Eng-
land"; "how each of these is prepared for sowing," "there being
many sorts of wheat.. . and so of oats.. . which of these grow
in your country and in what soyl, and which of them thrive
best there . .."; "how they differ in goodness"; "what kinds of
grain are most proper to succeed there"; "some of the common
accidents and diseases befalling corn in the growth of it, being
blasting, mildew, smut, w&at are conceived to be the causes
thereof and what the remedies"; "annoyances the growing corn
is subjected to, as weeds, worms, flies, birds, mice, moles, etc.,
how they are remedied"; "waies of preserving the several
sorts of grain"; "how the above-mentioned sorts of soyl are
prepared when they are used for Pasture or Meadow";
"the common annoyances of these pasture and meadow
grounds."

Such are samples of the questions. The replies to them were
pkced after discussion in the archives from which they have been
lately rescued by Lennard, who analyses them in an article in
the Economic History Review (iv, 1932). Here deliberately and
systematically organized science takes stock of the common
experience of mankind to formulate problems for which precise