Selected quad for the lemma: ground_n
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A26162
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The faithfull surveyour discovering divers errours in land measuring, and showing how to measure all manner of ground, and to plot it, and to prove the shutting by the chain onely ... / by George Atwell.
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Atwell, George.
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1658
(1658)
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Wing A4163; ESTC R24190
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96,139
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143
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yet in the low level ground it is infinitely more commodious for pasture in summer that the three years crop of grass without any charge at all is more worth then your two crops of grain with all your two years seed your dung and carriage and five or six plowings harrowings rowlings and weedings But you will say ground is long in grassing and I am but a Tenant and have but a short time in my lease when I have made it fit for another my Land-lord will turn me out or make me pay more rent This I confess is something and in some cases may serve for an answer but yet upon this condition thy Land-lord will renew thy lease for one and twenty years if he be wise and then you are well enough for whereas you say it it long in grassing that is remedied with one years charge of arable for if thou first plow it and lay it flat and with as few furrows as may be about November and then dung it then plow it again about the beginning of March still laying it flat and filling up the furrows then sow it with hay-dust or chaff-dust which every hors-keeper if they are spoken to about Michaelmas before will for a trifle save for you on purpose If you harrow in this you shall have a crop of grass at Mid-summer will be worth 30 or 40 shillings an acre and still be better and better But by all means plow in your dung I have laid some in that manner and some I have dung'd above ground three times yet this will not be comparable to the other yet but a furrow of a plow between and both laid down 40 years ago And by no means lay down any ground that is worn out of heart for by that means if ever thou get good grass of it in 40 years I 'le never be trusted unless thou dung it extraordinarily and yet it will not do Rather this do if it be inclosure take nothing but the mowing crop for divers years together and so doing that crop will be more worth then two whole years crops taken as ordinarily I speak all this of mine own experience upon my own grounds But I have often heard of and in part seen another sort of speedy grassing which is this They sow their ground with seed of claver-grass a very small quantitie on an acre and in some places they mow it twice in a year yet never sow it but once Whether they plow it or not I cannot justly tell I think not Thus I have seen at Maddingley three miles from Cambridge they save their common fallow fields till Midsummer and then have an exceeding crop of claver and then fallow But whether they sow for each crop or whether it be of the nature of Mustard-seed that need never be sown but once though the ground hath lien sward 40 years before I know not But you will say yours perhaps is common-field if you should lay it sward you should lay it for other folks And what of that If you have more benefit that way then you had before never grudge at it though others take a part 2ly Thou shalt take part with others of it as they do with thee And in most places one acre of sward hath as good right of common as three or in some places five acres of arable hath 3ly There is no doubt but others seeing thy good and speedy success will soon second thee and then thou shalt have as good benefit of his as he hath of thine Ob. But if every one should lay sward that would how shall we do for bread I answer I do not say I would have every one that list should lay down for sward but this I say I would have all ground turn'd to the most advantage first of the Common-wealth then of the owner I would not have such ground as will bear two or three load of as good hay as ever beast eat turn'd to arable when the next acre to it being sown some years hath scarce yeelded the seed again Where an ordinarie acre of pasture is worth 50 shillings per annum and the best arable not above 8 shillings for as for an acre of sward though it be worth but 20 shillings to the owner yet to the Common-wealth it is worth 30 shillings the after-pasture where it is reckoned at a third part of the rent with us at Cambridge far more and that is not lost it doth not vanish into air and though the Master get it not the Common-wealth doth and how would Luton and Hitching do for hay were it not for Pullox-hill Gravenhurst Or how would Cambridge do were it not for the Fenns Yea I have known that hay hath been carried out of Bedfordshire to London thirty five miles And I am sure that it is an easier matter to drive fat cattel an hundred miles then to carry corn fourty by land Neither would I have Chiltern-ground turned to pasture because there an acre of arable is more worth then an acre of pasture Yet certainly it plainly appears by this that generally there is more want of pasture in England then of arable for that we have daily fat cattel brought out of Ireland and Scotland but never any go out but where grain comes in once it goes out ten times CHAP. XXXIV Of the choise of a rich ground FOr a generall fat soil and such as is good for all things or at least most things both grass and grain for indeed no ground is fit for all things Non omnis fert omnia tellus the black ground of a good deep staple with a mixture of gravel or sand is not unworthily commended of the Poet Lib. 3. Georgic Pinguis item quae sit tellus hoc denique pacto Discimus haud unquam manibus jactata fatiscit Sed picis in morem ad digitos lentescit habendo Humida majores herbas alit ipsáque justo Laetiorâ— ah nimiùm nè sit mihi fertilis illa Neu se praevalidam primis ostentet aristis For this we commend Ailes-bury And some extoll as highly earth that is of a reddish colour as the ground about Armagh in Ireland which some report hath had no manner of manuring since the memory of man I know some such black ground in Pullox-hill afore-said but I know no such red Virgil also saith That if you dig a deep hole in the ground and fill it up again if you cannot tread in the earth again then it is rich arable ground 2. Georgiâ— altéque jubebis In solido puteum demitti omnémque repones Rursus humum pedibus summas aequabis arenas Si deerunt rarum pecorÃque vitibus almis Aptius uber erit sin in sua posse negabunt Ire loca scrobibus superabit terra repletis Spissus ager glebas cunctantes crassáque terga Expecta validis terram prosciâ—de juvencis Also a sweet smell after the first rain or a drought or after new plowing is a token of
a rich soil Also where thistles nettles or other weeds grow rank Also where trees grow long and upright Also where fruit especially pears are more pleasant in tast then in other places for if a young pear-tree bears pleasant pears in a good ground and you remove it into a bad ground you will think the fruit not to be of the same kinde yet all grounds are not alike for all things Non omnis fert omnia tellus And for the most part those grounds that are most barren above are richest within as stone-pits fullers-earth lead coal tin silver and gold-mines Some grounds are fitter for wood then either for corn or grass I have seen a ground in Hartford-shire that hath been laid two years where were grown naturally black and rank sallows all over the ground in tussocks some six some seven foot high so that the crop of wood was more worth then the crop of grass CHAP. XXXV Of inriching lean ground LEan grounds are either inriched with rest or with dunging As for pasture if you neither eat nor mow it two or three years or onely mow it once a year or if you will eat it by no means eat it too low and you will greatly thereby both better the ground and get a speedier increase of the crop for after it once covers the ground it grows more in a week then in six weeks before by reason it keeps the ground both hot and moist yet not so hot as to be scorched with the Sun therefore be sure to spare such barren grounds by Candle-mass at the furthest As for lean arable though common-field ground it is a common thing in divers places where they have a great deal of lean land that lies far from any Town to let some thereof lie lea six or seven years and the longer it lies the more heart it gets As for dunging the benefit of hors-dung and cow-dung is every where known in part yet not to all alike some will not lay it on their land till it is rotten but will carry it out of their yards and lay it on dung-hills in the field either at the lands end or some place near to it though the land be not then sown whereby they make a double labour and lose a double benefit of their dung which they may easily finde by this that a great part of the strength of it goes into the ground it lies upon as appeareth in this for if they lay it in small heaps on the land where it should be spread if it lieth long unspread let them spread it as clean as they can yet those places will be ranker corn then the rest A second benefit which they lose is the stiving upward which in dry weather should be the onely nourishment to the corn If you please to try two acres of like land lying together and carry out twenty loads of hors-dung about Mid-summer that is new-made as such you may have at an Inn and lay that on a heap in the field by it self till February or March and then fetch twenty loads more of the like lay these twenty on one of the acres and the heap on the other but let your loads from the Inn be alike and then tell me which acre is the best barley But though you finde but little difference in the barley-crop you shall finde a vast difference in the peas-crop And if you will sow them three years together there will be no small odds for the stiving of the dung will be over in two or three years And this also will appear if you take a load of straw and lay it in some Orchard where no cattel come upon planks boards or stones and spread it so that the â—ain may get into it and turn it three or four times in a year and by three years end you will hardly have a quarter of a load of dung left and that which is left will be turned to earth also yet I deny not but that earth may be better then ordinary Also street-earth especially in Market-towns where goes store of sinks from stables kitchens dairy-houses but especially cisterns for malting I have known them that have got up all the piss they could get in a Market-town and carried it to their land in a tun and there strewed with good success But if they that have such convenience for carriage would but make triall of the water of the sink of a Chees-press or of cistern-water I doubt not but in short time there would be little of it lost And we see now how much soot is set by which within these fifty years men would not suffer to be thrown upon the dung-hill but into the midst of the street And although by Moses Law some great offenders were to have their land sown with salt and likewise in Judges ix 45 Abimelech when he took Sichem destroyed it and sowed it with salt the reason was that it should never bear grass nor grain And indeed it is an easie matter either with soot salt pigeon-dung or piss to over-dung and spoil all I have known some carry out pigeon-dung in sacks in May and lay a sack-full on a heap upon the corn but they could not gather it up so clean but they kill'd all the corn as far as the heap lay I have sown pigeon-dung in an extream hot and dry year upon barley on an hot and dry land when at harvest the barley hath scarce peeked out of the hose yet it hath been the best in the furlong Again I have in a wet year sown pigeon-dung on sand when my crop hath been more worth then the fee-simple or value of the ground â—and that is folded a little before or presently after the sowing doth far better then otherwise But herein many men wrong themselves in surfeiting their sheep in Summer-time when their fold goes on single-lands as on roods or half-acres in laying them so thick that they over-heat one another thinking that if they have as many hurdles as they had before that then they lie as thin as they did before but this I have spoken of before in the first Chapter where also I have shewed the disproportion and therefore to it I refer you Yet before I leave this I must add further that I see no reason why other countreys may not fold in Winter as well or rather then Oxfordshire or Buckinghamshire nay far rather either upon sward or arable especially Hartfordshire or Middlesex if they will do as they do that is winde their hurdles on two sides with broom and remove their hay-rack and cratches with their folds Hartfordshire hath far drier laire their sheep more hardy and sound and never rotting more hedges to shelter them and dung infinitely dearer And if they broom their hurdles to keep them warm then why not to keep them warm by keeping them together I never knew sheep take hurt by lying warm in Winter If you will not fold your arable