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Subject Area: Political Theory
Topic: The American Revolution and Constitution

JAY TO JUDGE HOBART. - John Jay, The Correspondence and Public Papers of John Jay, vol. 4 (1794-1826) [1893]

Edition used:

The Correspondence and Public Papers of John Jay, ed. Henry P. Johnston, A.M. (New York: G.P. Putnam’s Sons, 1890-93). Vol. 4 (1794-1826).

Part of: The Correspondence and Public Papers of John Jay, 4 vols.

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JAY TO JUDGE HOBART.

London, 12th August, 1794.

My Good Friend:

I passed this morning in a visit to Sir John Sinclair, President of the Board of Agriculture, and to Col. Bentham, who is preparing for the establishment of a panopticon, agreeable to the plan delineated in a publication which I once communicated to you.

The Agricultural Society is incorporated with a yearly allowance, by government, of three thousand pounds. Their plans are extensive; they have been singularly industrious, and much has been done. I enclose you the proposed plan of their general report; if executed in the extent and in the manner intended, it will be the most interesting work of the kind, respecting husbandry, which has appeared in any country.

Sir John showed us sheep of different breeds, stuffed and prepared in the highest degree of perfection. Of these, drawings are making; models are collecting of the most useful machines; among them is one for cleaning grain from the straw, which, by the help of two horses and a man and a boy, will do 70 or 80 bushels per day. They begin to be in use among the farmers, which I consider as a proof of their answering the purpose.

Among the sheep, the Teeswater is the largest. Sir John showed me a fleece presented to the Board, which weighed twenty odd pounds. He tells me they frequently weigh sixty pounds a quarter.

From Saxony, he is informed that the Spanish breed had been imported there; that they succeeded well, and did not degenerate. They sent him a sample of the wool. I enclose a lock of it. This fact shows that the fineness of wool depends not less on breed than on management.

Sir John has a farm in Scotland which rented for £300 a year. It was employed in raising store-cattle, which were usually sold into England, and fattened for the London market. He dismissed the cattle, and introduced sheep; it proved profitable, and he is now offered £1,200 a year for it. His flock is 3,000.

The progress of husbandry in this country is astonishing; the king patronizes it, and is himself a great farmer. He has been doing much in that way at Windsor.

Colonel Bentham has invented a number of curious and very useful machines, intended to be introduced into the panopticon. He showed us a model of the building; it seems admirably calculated for its purposes.

He has a machine for sawing at once from a plank the felloe of a wheel to its form, another contrivance for cutting it to its proper length and angle, another for finishing the spoke, another for boring and mortising the hub, another for driving the spokes. He has one for turning a circular saw for small work, another for making the mouldings, if they may be so called, on the pieces which form sashes; one for sawing stone, others for working different kinds of saws into many slabs at once, another for polishing them, another for planing boards, and taking a shaving of its full width from one end to the other, etc., etc., etc. He has patents for these machines; but as yet they cannot be purchased. He has one for cutting corks with incredible expedition.

Governor Hunter, from Norfolk Island, with whom I was last week in company, speaking of its productions, mentioned that among the birds there were swans that were black, having only a few white feathers in the wings. They are plenty. One stuffed and well preserved, I am told, is here. As yet I have not seen it. He also mentioned a wild flax growing on upland to about three feet high, and good. I do not yet learn that any of the seed of it is here.

They who have leisure and a turn for these things, might here acquire much entertaining and some useful information. Want of time represses my curiosity, and will not allow me to pay much attention to objects unconnected with those of my mission.

I am, dear sir,
Your affectionate friend and servant,

John Jay.