nd. Joseph Elkington was a
Warwickshire farmer, and Mr. Gisborne says he was a man of considerable
genius, but he had the misfortune to be illiterate. His discovery had
created such a sensation in the agricultural world, that it was thought
important to record its details; and, as Elkington's health was
extremely precarious, the Board resolved to send Mr. John Johnstone to
visit, in company with him, his principal works of drainage, and to
transmit to posterity the benefits of his knowledge.

Accordingly, Mr. John Johnstone, having carefully studied Elkington's
system, under its author, in the peripatetic method, undertook, like
Plato, to record the sayings of his master in science, and produced a
work, entitled, "An Account of the Most Approved Mode of Draining Land,
According to the System Practised by Mr. Joseph Elkington." It was
published at Edinburgh, in 1797. Mr. Gisborne says, that Elkington found
in Johnstone "a very inefficient exponent of his opinions, and of the
principles on which he conducted his works."

"Every one," says he, "who reads the work, which is popularly
called 'Elkington on Draining,' should be aware, that it is not
Joseph who thinks and speaks therein, but John, who tells his
readers what, according to his ideas, Joseph would have thought and
spoken."

Again--

"Johnstone, measured by general capacity, is a very shallow
drainer! He delights in exceptional cases, of which he may have met
with some, but of which, we suspect the great majority to be
products of his own ingenuity, and to be put forward, with a view
to display the ability with which he could encounter them."

Johnstone's report seems to have undergone several revisions, and to
have been enlarged and reproduced in other forms than the original, for
we find, that, in 1838, it was published in the United States, at
Petersburg, Virginia, as a supplement to the _Farmer's Register_, by
Edmund Ruffin, Esq., editor, a reprint "from the third British Edition,
revised and enlarged," under the following title:

"A Systematic Treatise on the Theory and Practice of Draining Land,
&c., according to the most approved methods, and adapted to the
various situations and soils of England and Scotland; also on sea,
river, and lake embankments, formation of ponds and artificial
pieces of water, with an appendix, containing hints and directions
for the culture and im