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Word A	Word B	Word C	Word D	Occurrence	Frequency Band	MI	MI Band	Prominent
book_n	line_n	page_n	read_v	9,933	5	9.6901	5	true

Text snippets containing the quad

ID	Title	Author	Corrected Date of Publication (TCP Date of Publication)	STC	Words	Pages
A36288	Husbandry anatomized, or, An enquiry into the present manner of teiling and manuring the ground in Scotland for most part and several rules and measures laid down for the better improvement thereof, in so much that one third part more increase may be had, and yet more than a third part of the expence of the present way of labouring thereof saved / by Ja. Donaldson.	Donaldson, James, fl. 1697-1713.	1697 (1697)	Wing D1853; ESTC R10333	43,543	168

HUSBANDRY Anatomized OR An Enquiry into the Present Manner of Teiling and Manuring the Ground in SCOTLAND For most Part AND Several RULES and MEASURES laid down for the better Improvement thereof in so much that one third part more INCREASE may be had and yet more than a third part of the EXPENCE of the present Way of LABOURING thereof Saved By JA DONALDSON EDINBURGH Printed by IOHN REID in the Year M. DC.XC.VII To the Right Honourable PATRICK Earl of MARCHMONT Viscount of BLASONBERIE Lord POLW ARTH Lord High Chancellour of SCOTLAND And the whole Remnant Lords of His Majesties Most Honourable Priy COUNCIL Right HONOURABLE IT may be looked upon as a Peice of heightened Arrogance for such a Person as I am to Presume to Endit any thing that may deserve your Lordships Cognizance And truly on any other Subject but this most Plain and Genuine Art of Husbandrie I had scarce adventured to publish my Sentiments and much less presumed to offer the same to such August Venerable and Judicious Criticks Who are acquainted with Learned and Eloquent Treatises on all Subjects But where there is greatest Judgement there useth to be most Discretion Which gives me Confidence and Ground to hope that what I here offer with Respect and Good Will allanarly with an Eye to the publick Good shall find Acceptance Thô from the Stile of Writing or Congruity of Language no such thing can be pleaded for Rhetorick being that which neither the Subject doth require nor my simple Genius can Aspire to Perhaps two Questions may be asked Concerning my Experience in Husbandry and Motives in publishing thereof To give a positive and distinct Answer to both will require an abridged History of my own Life which I shall with all Brevity repeat because it will be a kind Kye to the following Sheets I was bred in the Country Till I was upwards of twenty years of Age And my Father keeping Servants and Cattle for labouring a part of these Lands which heritably belonged to him I had occasion to acquire as much Knowledge in Husband Affairs as was practised in that place of the Country Some few years before the Revolution I applyed my self to the study of Traffick and Merchandizing But as soon as it pleased GOD to call his Majestie then Prince of Orange to relieve these Kingdoms from the Imminent Danger They then stood in I judged it my Honour and Duty to concur with such a Laudible and Glorious Undertaking And according to my Ability testified my Affection to the Cause several wayes needless here to repeat And especially in Leavying a Company of Men for his Majesties Service and served in the Earl of Angus his Regiment till the second day of February 1690. When that Regiment was reduced from twenty to thirteen Companies I was disbanded But through the scarcity of Money in the Exchequer and great need of keeping an Army on foot Hitherto I have received no Reimbursement of Money I Depursed on that Occasion nor what I can claim of Arriers But the chief Cause of my being reduced to the present hard Condition I am in was The leaving my Business in Confusion when I engadged in His Majesties Service not getting Goods in my Custodie disposed off to Advantage nor Debts due to me sought in And on the other hand my Creditors sued for what was owing them I was obliged to satisfie and pay several other Summs I was Caution for to my great loss By all which and several other misfortunat Accidents my Credit was much broken and Estate near exhausted Notwithstanding of all which I wrasled under all these Disadvantages still thinking to have recovered till within this two or three years At length I was obliged to succumb my Creditors attacking all my Effects I was necessitat to leave the Kingdom for a time and now returning empty handed I began to Reason thus with my self What Have I learned nothing from all that I have seen or heard whereby I can be Useful to my self or the Common-Wealth And at length came to this Resolve I have had some Experience of the Way and Manner of Labuoring the Ground in this Countrey And I have seen their Way of mannaging thereof in some other Places which is generally done to greater Advantage And when I began to try what might be the Causes why there is such difference of Increase in one place more than another I found it is not altogether from the difference of the Climate nor Primitive Constitution of the Earth And as soon as I thought of publishing this I thought it my Duty with all Humility to present it to your Lordships in respect you are not only Proprietors of a great part of Lands in this Kingdom but also in Authority and Dignity to recommend this Project both by Example and Precept And if it may seem practicable in your Lordships Eyes and any Benefit to the Publick come thereby I shall reckon it a special Mercy of GOD who by his Overruling Providence oft times worketh by contrary like Means that I am reduced to this penurious Condition For if it had pleased GOD to continue me in prosperity I beleive this Project had never entred my thoughts I am not so self conceited as to apprehend there is any great Mistery in what I have here published for it is a thing many have not only known but practised But never any that I yet saw hath published it in thir Terms for as I noted in page 125 the grand mistake lyeth in Mis-calculation And I foresaw if I had used the common Method of writing on this Subject it had been objected the Profit would not overballance the Expence For which Cause I have chused to go thorow every Particular and shew how and from whence the profit doth arise I know Epistols Dedicatory are usually stuffed with the Praises of those to whom they are directed But the like Practise were here supperfluous tho I were capable of such a Task as the Poet who was desired to write in praise of Alexander answered Who hath dispraised Alexander So I think my dull Pen attempting to applaud Unquestioned Vertue were not only Vain but Injurious Wherefore I judge it my best Eloquence to be altogether silent and let your Enemies judge whither Real Vertue doth not dwell in the Breasts of these whom Divine Providence hath exalted to such Dignity And the most Serene August and Judicious Monarch this Day in the World maketh choise of for His Counsellours But to avoid Prolixity and encroaching upon your Lordship's Patience I shall conclude Now that all Honour Prosperity and Endless Felicity may alwayes attend You is the Earnest Wish and Unfeigned Prayer of Your LORDSHIPS most Humble and Obedient Servant Ja Donaldson ERRATA Page 8 Line 8 for Vigitables read Vegetables and several other Places Page 25 Line 12 for only and read only add Page 107 Line 1 for 5 read 4 ibid Line 3 for 200 read 1600. Page 108 Line 10 for 4907 read

7907. As for any other Literal Errors incident to creep into all Books throw mistake be pleased to correct them your selves And if it were proper here to make an Appologie for my self I might plead the more to be excused in respect I have been so hastened to have this finished before the Session sate down and other Reasons needless here to repeat that before I wrote the second Sheet the first was at the Press and never after had I one Sheet of Coppy ready at once the whole time it was a printing THE PREFACE to the READER NEighbours and Country men this small Treatise may seem to bear a Title which in the following Sheets cannot be made good I confess before I took a particular look into every Circumstance of this Project I could scarce beleive such a thing could be But after peruse● let the Iudicious Reader Iudge how far I have accomplished my Undertaking I know it is seldom that any new Project is much encouraged by most of you and he that proposeth it reputed a Wise Man However I have rather chosen to hazard upon the Censure of all than conceal that which may be profitable to any And seing the chief mistery of this Project consists in your Prudent and Exact Calculation as I remarked in my Answer to the 2 d. Objection wherefore I yet once more Recomend it in this and all other Cases I doubt not but some may cast it in my Teeth since I am so good at Teaching others how to improve their Stocks How cometh it to pass that I have been so far mistaken in forecasting of my own Affairs To which I Answer Perhaps I may now be a better Gamester than formerly while my Carts were a playing Moreover it was not altogether my want of Skill in Calculating that made my Projects to misgive But grant it to be as ye suppose it doth not follow but my Advice may be both Profitable and Reasonable A Mariner that hath suffered Ship-wrack may be as good a Pilote in that same Channel where he lost his Ship as another that has come that same Way with a Prosperous Gale and Full-Sea sailing over the hide Rocks and dangerous Banks If you think my Advice Reasonable take it Gratis and welcome If not buy Experience at th Rate I have done HUSBANDRY Anatomized OR An Enquiry into the present manner of Manuring the Ground in Scotland for most part and several Rules and Measures laid down for the better Improvement thereof c. WHEN Almighty GOD Created the World by the Word of his Power He could have made Men to live without Food as well as Angels Or yet have made the Earth to bring forth all manner of Food for him without Labour or Industry as it doth for Ca●●le and creeping things But so it was that He that is Infinit in Wisdom saw it meet to assign Man a dayly exercise in earning his Food and Rayment whereby he is not only diverted from following some bad Practice But also that thereby he may see his great frailty in that he is not able to live without dayly Subsistance and Refreshment from Creatures inferiour to himself As also he thereby may learn to know his great need of Spiritual Nourishment to his Soul in as much as it is more precious than the Body together with many other profitable Lessons No doubt if Man had continued in the Estate of Innocencie his Labour had been rather a Pleasure than a Toyle as may be gathered from the Sentence pronounced against Adam where it 's said From thenceforth by the Sweat of his Brows he should Earn his Bread untill he should return unto the Dust 'T is plain enough it had not fated so with him were not for his Transgression And upon Cain's Transgression the Earth is again Cursed that thenceforth it should not yeeld its strength What wonder thô before this time it had become a barren Wilderness considering the dayly multiplyed Transgressions of the Children of Men But this being extraneous to my purpose and that which I am not capable to decipher I shall remit it to the Contemplation of Divines But that I may come to the purpose I shall first take some general Observations concerning the present Constitution of the Earth 2. Lay down certain Rules for bringing every kind of Ground to a right Temperature so far as may be 3 An Enquirie into the present manner of manuring the Ground through most part of this Kingdom 4 Lay down several Rules for manuring it to greater advantadge tho not inclosed 5 How much more by Parking and Inclosures 6. Concerning Stock-keeping 7. Something concerning Planting 8. Some directions how to sow several Garden Seeds and Roots And lastly I shall enervat what Objections I conceive may be framed against any of my propositions CHAP. I. Of the Earth's Constitution in general ANd first I say notwithstanding that Proverb is of verity There is never a Tale without a Reason That is there is no Effect but from some certain Cause yet 't is as true there may be many things really true in Effect that we do not well know from what Cause And seing I am neither Philosopher nor Alchymist I hope the moderat Reader will not altogether disprove or misregard my propositions where the matter of fact is evident altho I cannot give a Philosophical definition of the Cause Nevertheless that I may not desire the Reader to credit my bare Assertion without any ground I shall in some measure endeavour according to my weak capacity to give him satisfaction in this point And first I say it cannot be denyed but some places of the Earth are Moist and Cold and other places Hot and dry The cause of which differences some aleadge to be by the influence of the Planets and other Coelestial Bodys by which also they make all Minerals to be Engendered I shall not say but there maybe much truth in this for in these Climates lying nearest the Equinoctial geting a larger share of the Sun's heat are generally more fertile providing it be not scorching than other places more remote as I shall afterward show Neither shall I altogether deny but other Planets may also have some influence Notwithstanding of all which I cannot be perswaded through influence of the Planets there can be with in the bounds of a mile of ground or perhaps less one field hot and sandy Another cold clay ground A third Marish and Boggie A fourth dry Heath ground A fifth a tollerable mixture of all these c. Now seing these differences cannot be from the forementioned Cause it must be from its primitive Constitution or I shall not dive any farther into it To enquire any more after the Cause of this is like a person coming where there is a house on fire and in stead of endeavouring to quench the Flame calleth out How did the Fire break out How was the House kendled The thing required in this case seing the Effect is unqustionable