Young was elected a Fellow of the Royal Society in 1774; but the Society refused a number of his papers on agricultural topics, which always had critics, such as James Anderson of Hermiston. In 1784 Young began the publication of the "Annals of Agriculture", which ran for 45 volumes: contributors included King George III, writing under the pseudonym "Ralph Robinson", and Robert Andrews, whom Young took as a model farmer. Young's figures for the total area of England and Wales, and total cultivated area, were serious overestimates. In a work from 1799, during wartime and fiscal strain on the national budget, Henry Beeke gave more reliable figures, showing Young had erred.