Everything about Arthur Young Writer totally explained
Arthur Young (
September 11,
1741 -
April 12,
1820) was an
English writer on agriculture, economics and social statistics.
Arthur was the second son of the Rev. Arthur Young, rector of
Bradfield, Suffolk, who was chaplain to Speaker
Arthur Onslow. After attending school at
Lavenham, Arthur Young was in
1758 placed in a mercantile house at
King's Lynn, but had no interest in commerce. At the age of seventeen, he published a pamphlet
On the War in North America, and in
1761 went to
London and started a periodical, entitled
The Universal Museum, which was dropped on the advice of
Samuel Johnson. He also wrote four novels, and
Reflections on the Present State of Affairs at Home and Abroad in
1759. After his father's death in the same year, his mother placed him in charge of the family estate at Bradfield Hall; but the property was small and encumbered with debt. From
1763 to
1766 he devoted himself to farming on this property. In
1765 he married a Miss Allen; but the marriage wasn't happy, though he was a family man.
In
1767 he took over a farm in Essex, where he engaged in various experiments, describing the results in
A Course of Experimental Agriculture (
1770). Though Young's experiments were, in general, unsuccessful, he thus acquired a solid knowledge of agriculture. He had already begun a series of journeys through England and
Wales, and gave an account of his observations in books which appeared from 1768 to 1770—
A Six Weeks' Tour through the Southern Counties of England and Wales,
A Six Months' Tour through the North of England and the
Farmer's Tour through the East of England. He claimed that these books contained the only extant information relative to the rental, produce and stock of England that was founded on actual examination. They were very favourably received, being translated into most European languages by
1792. In all, Young produced around 25 books and pamphlets on agriculture and 15 books on political economy, as well as many articles. He was famous for the views he expressed, as an agricultural improver, political economist and social observer. In
1768 he published the
Farmer's Letters to the People of England, in
1771 the
Farmer's Calendar, which went through many editions, and in
1774 his
Political Arithmetic, which was widely translated. Young also acted as parliamentary reporter for the
Morning Post. He toured
Ireland in
1776, publishing his
Tour in Ireland in
1780. In
1784 he began the publication of the
Annals of Agriculture, which was continued for 45 volumes: contributors included
King George III, writing under the nom de plume of "Ralph Robinson." Young's first visit to France was in
1787. Travelling all over that country around the start of the
French Revolution, he described the condition of the people and the conduct of public affairs at that critical juncture. The
Travels in France appeared in two volumes in
1792. On his return home he was appointed secretary of the
Board of Agriculture 1793 just formed under the presidency of Sir
John Sinclair. In this capacity he gave most valuable assistance in the collection and preparation of agricultural surveys of the English counties. His sight, however, failed, and in
1811 he'd an operation for
cataract, which proved unsuccessful. On his death, he left an autobiography in manuscript, which was edited (
1898) by Miss
M. Betham-Edwards, and is the main authority for his life. He also left the materials for a great work on the
Elements and practice of agriculture.
More recently attention has moved to the small print of his writings and Young has been studied for his methods of investigation.
Richard Stone (1997) presents him as a pioneer national income statistician, continuing the work of
Gregory King who had lived a century before. Young produced three estimates of the national income of England, in his
Tour through the North of England, Farmer's Tour through the East of England and in his
Political Arithmetic. Brunt (2001) emphasises the way Young collected his information and presents him as a pioneer of sample surveys. Young influenced such contemporary observers of economic and social life as
Frederick Morton Eden and
Sinclair.
Arthur Young was the greatest of all English writers on agriculture; but it's as a social and political observer that he's best known, and his
Tour in Ireland and
Travels in France are still full of interest and instruction. He saw clearly and exposed unsparingly the causes which retarded the progress of Ireland. He strongly urged the repeal of the penal laws which pressed upon the Catholics; he condemned the restrictions imposed by Great Britain on the commerce of Ireland, and also the perpetual interference of the Irish parliament with industry by prohibitions and bounties. He favoured a legislative union of Ireland with Great Britain, though he didn't regard such a measure as absolutely necessary, many of its advantages being otherwise attainable.
He thought the soil of France superior to that of England, but noted that agriculture was neither as well understood nor as highly regarded as in England. He blamed the upper classes for their neglect of it. "Banishment (from court) alone will force the French nobility to execute what the English do for pleasure—reside upon and adorn their estates." Young saw the commencement of violence in the rural districts, and his sympathies began to take the side of the classes suffering from the excesses of the Revolution. This change of attitude was shown by his publication in 1793 of a tract entitled
The Example of France a Warning to England. Of the profounder significance of the French outbreak he seems to have had little idea, and thought the crisis would be met by a constitutional adjustment in accordance with the English type. He strongly condemned the
metayer system, then widely prevalent in France, as "perpetuating poverty and excluding instruction"—as, in fact, the ruin of the country. Some of his phrases have been often quoted by the advocates of peasant proprietorship as favouring their view.
- "The magic of property turns sand to gold."
- "Give a man the secure possession of a bleak rock, and he'll turn it into a garden; give him a nine years' lease of a garden, and he'll convert it into a desert."
But these sentences, in which the epigrammatic form exaggerates a truth, and which might seem to represent the possession of capital as of no importance in agriculture, must not be taken as conveying his approbation of the system of small properties in general. He approved it only when the subdivision was strictly limited, and even then with great reserves; and he remained to the end what John Stuart Mill calls him, "the apostle of la grande culture".
The
Directory in
1801 ordered his writings on the art to be translated and published at Paris in 20 volumes under the title of
Le Cultivateur anglais. His
Travels in France were translated in
1793/
1794 by Soules; a new version by M. Lesage, with an introduction by M. de Lavergne, appeared in
1856. An interesting review of the latter publication, under the title of
Arthur Young et la France de 1789, will be found in M.
Baudrillart's Publicistes modernes (Paris 1st ed., 1862).
Discussion
See John Gazely's biography to see a discussion of Young's death, often mistakenly dated to April 20.
There is a chapter on Young as an economic statistician in
Richard Stone Some British Empiricists in the Social Sciences 1650-1900, Cambridge University Press, 1996.
On Young as a survey statistician see
L. Brunt The Advent of the Sample Survey in the Social Sciences, The Statistician, 50,(2001),171-190.
On Young as agronomist and agrarian traveler see
Antonio Saltini, Storia delle scienze agrarie, t. II, I secoli della rivoluzione agraria, Edagricole, Bologna (1987), 285-236
Resources and external links
Arthur Young's Travels in France During the Years 1787, 1788, 1789 
from The Library of Economics and Liberty
Travels in France and Italy During the Years 1787, 1788 and 1789 from Archive for the History of Economic Thought
The National Portrait Gallery has 5 portraits of Young
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