Arthur Young was a tireless propagandist for agricultural improvement and spent most of his life travelling in England, Wales, Ireland and France, observing agricultural methods and arguing for scientific improvement.
The son of a rector, Young was initially employed as a trainee merchant in King's Lynn, then a busy port servicing Norfolk and Cambridgeshire, but he was of a restless temperament and more interested in writing than in commerce. In 1761, at the age of 17, he published a pamphlet On the War in North America. The same year he went to London to start a periodical, The Universal Museum, and whilst there wrote four novels. During the early 1760s he was also involved in several farming ventures, and from 1768-77 he farmed in Hertfordshire where he applied the new ideas of
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Citation: Clark, Robert. "Arthur Young". The Literary Encyclopedia. First published 21 July 2004 [https://www.litencyc.com/php/speople.php?rec=true&UID=4839, accessed 23 November 2024.]
