may be about 4 or five inches long which is also to be planted and is as good as the crown set also if it be any thing a moist time you may take slips from the leaf or branches and set them and they some of them will grow but they may be set betwixt the other to thicken lest they should fail There is abundance of Spanish sets come over of late One M. Walker sells of them at Winchester house in Southwark London but how good they be I am able to say little but hear various reports of them and therefore I will forbear they are bought cheaper than English sets can be but if they bring forth a small Spanish Liquorish I shall not much affect them The third particular is the profit advantage may be made thereby which is very considerable but it is also subject to the ebbings and flowings of the market It must be taken up in winter and must be sold as soon as taken up lest it lose the weight which it must needs do you may make of one Acre of indifferent Liquorish 50. or 60 l. and of excellent good 80. 90. or 100l it is not of so great use as some other commodities are and so will not vent off in so great parcells as others will neither will it indure the keeping for a good market because it will dry exceedingly The Fifth Piece containes the Art of Planting of Rape Cole-seed Hemp and Flax with the severall advantages that may bee made of each CHAP. XL. Only contains the Discovery of Rape and Cole-seeds husbandry THe planting of Cole-seed or Rape-seed is another excellent good meanes for the improving land the Coleseed is of late dayes best estemed And it is most especially usefull upon you Marsh-land Fen land or upon your new recor vered Sea-land or any lands very rank and fat whether arable or pasture The best seed is the biggest fairest seed that you can get it being dry and of a pure clear color of the color of the color of the best Onion-seed It is to be had in many parts of this Nation but Holland is the Center of it from thence comes your good seed usually The season of sowing is at or about Midsummer you must have your land plowed very well and laid even and fine whether upon the lay turf or areable and both may do well but your arable must be very rich and fat and having made yovr land fine then you may sow it and about a gallon of seed will sow an Acre the which seed must bee mingled as afore was directed about the Claver with something that you may sow it even and not upon heaps the even sowing of it is very difficult it grows up exceedingly to great leaves but the benefit is made out of the seed especially The time to cut it is when one half of the seed begins to look browne you must reap it as you doe wheat and lay it upon little yelmes or two or three handfuls together till it be dry and that very dry too about a fortnight will dry it it must not be turned nor touched if it were possible for fear of shedding the seed that being the chief profit of it about a fortnight the seed will be dry it must bee gathered in sheets or rather a great ship sail-cloath as big as four or six sheets and carried into the Barn erected on purpose or to that place designed on purpose to thresh it that day you must have sixteen or eighteen men at a floor four men will thresh abundance in a day I have heard that four men have threshed thirty Coume in a day The seed is usually worth sixteen shillings a Coume that is four shillings a busnell sometimes more and sometimes less It will if exceeding good bear ten Coume upon an acre or five quarter if it be but indifferent and will not bear above seaven or eight Coume of an Acre It will raise a good advance upon your lands It is a commodity you will not want sale of the greater the parcell is the better price you will have It is used to make the Rape-oyl as we call it The Turnep seed will grow among it and it will make good oyl also you may sell a thousand pound together to one Chapman it is best to bee planted by the water or near it It cannot be too rank it Eadish or Stubble will exceedingly nourish Sheep in Winter It hath another excellent property it will fit the land so for corning for Wheat it may produce a crop as good or better than it self and for Barley after that The charge of the whole Crop I conceive may come to be betwixt twenty and thirty shillings an Acre and a good Crop may be worth four five six seven or eight pound an Acre the least is a very good improvement because it will doe excellent well if well ordered and a kind season upon land the very first year after recovery when it will do nothing else if it can be but plowed when other things as corn or grain may be hazarded and so have you this Discourse though in much brevity your experience will teach you what euer here is wanting and my weighty business wil not suffer me to supply Shewes how good a publike Commodity Hempe is with the mannar of planting CHAP. XL. AS for Hemp that is a very good Commodity and would be farre the better but that it is not mad so Nationall yet as necessary I am confident as any thing amongst us is yet but not being intended nor incouraged as a staple or grand businesse as it might and Flax also and that more especially then this but both joyned together and a publique stocke erected either in the general or else in every particular Township I know not but why the product thereof might not onely bring in a constant considerable profit for the stock and the poore in every Parish maintained both comfortably in a calling and livelyhood especially all women kind and children but they fitted and brought up to a Trade and way that may render them publikly usefull to the Nation I should undertake to make it out that this very way of it self would do it if it would advance the work Why should we runne to France and to Flanders and the Low-Countries and I know not whither for thred and cloath of so many sorts and fine linnen and cordage or rather why should we not if we be at want of Work-men to make out to that worth and goodnesse fetch here and there a workman from thence and so preserve or rather raise the Trade wholly within our selves had we but Law put in execution to constrain people to labour and some way to perswade men to use their Lands to the best advantage to themselves and publike what should we want We have the Commodity grows exceeding well among us we see we have and can make excellent
float Land by Rivers whose practice clean confutes his opinion who study to drain their Land as fast as float it and the best and most skilfull of them will drown none at all unless for a day or two but drain as fast and draw off as fast as they bring it on And to prove his Tenent he affirms how advantageous it will be in keeping up the flouds by his inbankments to secure the Fens from drowning which is as likely as to keep the Sea from flowing after ebbing for he that will make banks to keep in Land-flouds may as well make a hedge to keep in the Cuckow and whereas he pretends hereby to raise new Springs that may be sure I am he will raise new Quick-sands and what good use they are of I am yet to learn And for Barren Land which he seemes so well skilled in the Improvement which he desires to purchase I will help him to enough if he will either be pleased to return a miâ—d answer if my plainess have offended him or else practically make good what he hath affirmed for that a man doth do is far more credible than that he affirmes he can do Many other causes of offences might be spoken unto but they are referred to a more proper Opportunity wherein they may receive a more suitable capacity of removall and will be dropped into the discourse at large as occasion most seasonably is administred And so I proceed to the Recoveries of the said Barrenness But before I descend to the particulars consider the severall sorts of Lands that will admit of Improvement Which I consider under two Generall Heads First all inclosed Severall Land whether Meadow or Pasture Secondly Common Lands whether Arable or Grazing First Severall inclosed Lands I divide into three sorts or else will rank them under three Heads 1 First shall be our worst sort of Lands of what nature soever they be from the value of one shilling per Acre to Ten shillings The Improvement whereof will fall under most of the six particular Pieces it being capable of most and greatest Improvement 2 Secondly is our middle sorts of Lands from the value of Ten shillings per Acre unto Twenty which falls naturally under the third Piece or way of Improvement yet is capable oft times to fall under some or most of the other Pieces also 3 Third shall be our richest Land from Twenty shillings per Acre to forty and from forty to three or four Pounds an Acre some of this sort will admit of very little or no Improvement having all Naturall and Artificiall experiments already made upon it but some others of this richer sort will admit of a very considerable Improvement and is principally discovered under the sixt Piece Neither can I say that all Lands without exception of the two former sorts may be Improved For possibly and out of question very much is Improved already and others may lie so void of any capacity of Improvement that either there may be none at all or else none that will raise such Improvements as will well and sufficiently requite the charge and cost bestowed but comparatively not much of this in England And my design is principally to hold onely forth possbilities of Improving at a far inferiour charge to the cost bestowed and the Improvement made from such materialls as generally are lost or little or no whit practised in most parts of the Land The second Generall are our common Lands whether errable constantly unde Tillage such as are our common fields all the fieldon or field Land throughout the Nation of which there may be three sorts also Bad Better Best of all and all and every part thereof may be very much and manifoldly advanced under some or all of the aforesaid Pieces or else whether it be Commons or Commune of Pastures upon those great and vast Commons called Heaths Forrests Moores Marshes Meades or whatsoever of them Those also may admit of a very great Advancement and these Lands will fall familiarly under every Piece according to their severall values and capacities but most especially under the third and fourth Piece treating of Tillage and Inclosure And then I shall proceed to shew you the nature of each sorts of Lands whereby the Remedies will be most facile and easie in the application And so I have ended the first Generall The second Generall Head holds forth the severall meanes of Cure Or the reducement of Land unto Fruitfulness and Fertility discovered under the first Piece of Improvement of floating or watering Lands CHAP. III. Shewes the first Cure or Remedy against Barrenness and therein discourseth what Lands are most suitable to watering Aud how to gain watering upon the same BUt before I discourse the same at large I shall only say that there are severall Remedies against the said Barrenness or divers meanes of reducing these Lands to their naturall fruitfulness or to the Improvement of them to a more Supernaturall Advance than they were ever known to be To which I must premonish the Reader that here lyeth all the Skill and Kernell which being made forth in some good measure I hope will give thee such satisfaction that thou wilt not onely vouchsafe me the reading and thy credit thereto but also be a practioner therein Which done with delight will not onely produce the reall advantage here discovered but far greater For these things are and may be brought to a greater height of Advancement by how much the more Ingenuity and Activity is exercised in the Prosecution and Experimenting of them and to a greater discovery by a constant familiar use of them which is the true and reall end of his Discovery and the Proverb herein best will hold The more the Merrier The Cure followes now more largely ALl sorts of Lands of what nature or quality soever they be under what Climate soever of what constitution or condition soever of what face or character soever they be unless it be such as Naturally participates of so much fatness which Artificially it may be raised unto wil admit of a very large Improvement Yet the fattest Land was hath been or may be bettered by good husbandry And such are the Lands that lye near or bordering upon any River or small Brooks your little Rivers and Rivulets admitting of greater falls and descents than your bigger Rivers do which run more dull slow more dead and levell whereby little Opportunity will be gained of bringing but little Land to so great advance by them but where the greater Rivers can be gained over any Lands there will the Improvement be the greatest and the Lands made the richest the greater Rivers being usually the fruit-fullest having more Land-floods fall into them But under your lesser Brooks may your greatest quantities of Land be gained and your water most easily and with small charge be brought over greater parcels than upon greater Rivers 1 For the discovering of such Lands as lie
dangerous and destructive Food and Bread sustaineth Nature but Gluttony destroyes it Wine nourisheth the heart but Drunkenness drownes it And as over Tilling and forcing out the heart is worst so I say not then to Plow when the Land is run to moss and to these corruptions is no less bad And being done with wisdom and moderation is far more advantagâ— than not to Plow And this my self have offered familiarly for Lands of this nature worth and quality to give a Plowing or double Rent for the same according to his naturall worth for three or four yeares but not above as hath been conceived the Land hath been able to bear And then after Plowing the very first year to give the old Rent and take a Lease for Ten or Fifteen or Twenty years at the same rate whereby let Ingenuity Judge what Prejudice this may be possibly For the time of Plowing the Lands may yeeld double Rent some more some Rent and half Rent and some one third part more than old Rent All which I conceive is a great Advantage with another secret Advantage interwoven with it as an Adddition to the State which is the raising of a great quantity of Corn to the use of the Common-wealth The setting of many Poor on work The raising Straw which wintering Cattell with may raise such abundance of good Manure Dung or Soyl as may Inrich a great part of the same or some other Lands and were there no other advantage but helping the Common-wealth herein I hope no honest publique spirit would oppose it many Lands lying under this Capacity lye in the South part of Warwickshire and Worcestershire Leicester Nottingham Rutland some part of Lincolnshire Northampton Buckingham and some part of Bedfordshire and in most part of the Vales in England and very many parcels in most Counties of this Nation And this I say again do but observe my Method and strictly trace my Instructions pursue them all along I dare make it good upon most Lands except it be upon that which is a harsh binding churlish nature which wil also admit of a good Improvement though not so good especially when it shall be over-grown with the aforesaid Annoyances CHAP. XV. Sheweth the manner of Plowing and working Lands to so great Advance with two Incredible Presidents of Advance THere is a parcell of Land in VVarwickshire near Stratford upon Avon that is Oaded every fourteen yeares and Corned divers yeares after that and so there may be many more Parcels also besides this I speak of and so I know there is and after that fourteen yeares rest and Grazing Oaded again and Corned also So there are some in Northamptonshire Buckinghamshire and many other parts will do the like And so runs round Grazing fits for Plowing and Corning and Corning fits for Grazing A most gallant opportunitie Doubles the Grazing-rent while under Corning and more under Oading And Grazeth again immediately at a very considerable Rent and might do the first year at old Rent and so forward Would they Plow but three or four yeares according to my direction but they Plow five six or seven Such a Method would please me gallantly advance the Common-wealth exceedingly and prejudice whom I would fain know Abundance of poor set on work Abundance of Corn raised Abundance of Straw which spent and fed upon the Land shall make that up again what ever the Plowing fetched out Doubles Rent and more four or five yeares in one and twenty And so every age near fetcheth in the Purchase And the Land where it was and would be as rich as it was if it be not my directions observed a great Estate raised out of nothing Why not thus in a thousand other parts of this Nation as good Land and better and as suitable to this Advance and not improved to it O Sloth stand by let Ingenuity try a trick or two more and wonder at thy own Ignorance and Weakness and now see how to work it Secondly consider thy Land how it lieth whether round with Ridge and Furrow then use your own discretion for the manner of Plowing for the first year however Plow it as well as you can possibly both clear from Balks and Slips and of such a stitch or depth as the Land will bear however go not under the true and naturall Soyl of the Earth neither plow it too thick for that will be a great prejudice to your second Plowing because your Furrowes will rise most hard and stubborn and so moil both Teames Work-men and Servants as is incredible But if it be Lands and great Balks together then for the Lands Plow them as you please that is whether Ridge-Are or Cast them but for your Balks before you Ridge them all And although it will ask paines cost and hot water yet fail not herein And though the Rushes be thick and strong yet be not discouraged Mow the Rushes in the beginning of Winter as low as you can possibly and then you may with paines and patience a good Teame and good Ploughs with sharp Irons all made true sharp and smooth do it with incredible dexterity fail none of these directions you can not conceive the wonderfull advantage in this exactness And were it so the Land were such as there must be required as much cost and paines with the Spade as with the Plough I would bestow it and never question how it shall answer the same For say the cost be extraordinary and say one Acre cost thee as much overcomming it and laying it round sound and fair as usually thou or others bestow on two or three Acres Yet what is that to the fruit or profit it may produce I dare say one Acre of Corn thus throughly husbanded may be worth two Acres nay three slubbered over and done many times as most men commonly do therein And what is it to lay out a five shillings or a noble extraordinary in every Acre in the Husbandry and reap it by the Pounds in the Crop as I dare say you shall in the two first Crops which are the onely Crops requiring such paines and exactness I could tell thee an Experiment if thou durst beleeve it 't is this I once held a Piece of Land worth nine shillings an Acre and no more to a Graze I gave fifteen shillings to Plow it was great Lands as great Balkes betwixt them full of your soft Rushes and as high some of them as any ordinary Beast and lay very wet The Land conceived by me not able to bear Barley nor never would it was so weak and Barren so cold and Queasie And the neighbours very able Husbandmen round about so discouraged me out of their love unto me as that they deâ—ired me to forbear Tillage of it because it would never answer ordinary cost bestowed on it nor be worth an old Grazing-rent to Plow and that they cleared to me by very clear Evidence as they conceived
affirming that the Land next unto it but a hedge betwixt which was far better Land and indeed so it was very near as rich again husbanded by very able husbandâ— the best in that Country and that Land good Barley-Lâ—nd yet never answered the pains and cost bestowed yet I resolving to make a full triall thereof I set upon it according to the prescription aforesaid Each Acre Plowing and Harrowing Spading and Dressing for indeed I made Harrowes on purpose also of divers Sizes it cost me about fifteen or sixteen shillings an Acre the two first Crops the very Dressing of it And for these Crops being but of Oates I could have had five pound an Acre being offered it by an Oat-meal man of himself though never asked growing upon the ground Nay six pound an Acre if I would have sold it which is a vast Rate for Oates in the middle of the Nation And indeed I found the ground so poor that it would not bear Barley for I tryed some Acres of the best Land in it but it was not worth an Acre of my Oates and after Plowing I gave the old naturall Rent as it was ever set at or really worth and that for many years and the Land is better lyeth sounder warmer and both yeelds more Milk Summers as many Cattell and Winters far more and feeds better than it did before without any other cost bestowed and the very first year I layd it down after Plowing it kept me more Cattell and better than ever it did before and will continue better for it for ever after CHAP. XVI Sheweth the best and most advantagious way of Plowing and Husbandring Lands so as most to Advantage it in laying down Land to Graze to make good the Improvement promised and not to over-plow as you tender the loss of your Land TO this end be sure to lay your Furrowes open and clean scoured up and capable to receive and carry away all your standing water or soaking moysture from your Lands and be sure so to Plow your Lands as you may cast your Lands into severall Furlongs that you may have one Furrow or Drain run into another and that next into another and so into the Master Trench which if it cannot be made deep enough with the Plow let it be done with the Spade substantially And so from one to another to carry away the Water that it may neither annoy your Corn throughout your Field in any Furlong nor your Land when you come to lay it down and then when you have Plowed your Lands wherein the more truth and exactness you observe therein the more fruit expect And when you come to sowing your Lands you must get very strong weighty Harrowes if you would do it indeed and not slubber it over as most do long tined and sharp and either they must be so weighty of themselves that they may work a gallant strong Team to draw them or else so loaden with weight that you tear up rough uneven places and raise good store of Mould which is a marveilous great Advantage to the Corn as for the ordinary way of Hilding Land as most do is Reproveable and then with two or three sorts of Harrowes each Harrow having his Teeth or tines thicker than other which will so curiously and certainly cover your Corn that you will have little or none â—ye uncovered but well moulded which will have such strength heart unto it as by Gods blessing you may expect a Crop answerable to your cost bestowed and far greater The next direction is that as I cry up plowing as a soveraign meanes of a great Advancement so I also as much decry Over-Plowing or the Plowing of Lands as most do some Plow as long as it will bear any corn and others as long as it will bear good Corn And others they Plow on any fashion lay their Lands as though they were over-running them both to Corn and Graze and when they lay it down some lay down sound warm dry Land very high ridge and furrow and small Land too very prejudiciall to their Land and themselves too and are justly reproveable others lay down strong cold Land flat unopen'd some part Plowed some unplowed full of balkes holes and hils as if they would secure or ingross all the coldness and Venom of all the water and hunger that is either naturally upon it or that falls upon it or passeth by it they matter not after what manner they leave it nor after what Grain I therefore prescribe onely three or four yeares to Plow unto this sort of Land and to raise it every year not less because the Rush Filth and Earth will not be rotted nor well compounded nor the nature of the Land changed with fewer Tilths nor the Lands well brought to a good height roundness and driness in lesser time for if it be cold Laud all that can possibly be done will not lay it high and dry enough nor the Mould wrought to her perfect tenderness and true Mixture whereby it may yeeld more fruitfulness but if the Land be very rich of nature and not well wrought nor the Rush perfectly destroyed nor the Lands brought up to a convenient height and roundness then one year more may do well which year shall yeeld the best crop outof all question but will draw a little more from the strength of the Land than any of the other yeares did and if the Land be in strength it may very little prejudice it and therefore this I leave to every mans pleasure upon this consideration and could wish that all men would so Plow as mainly intending the Advance and Betterment of their Land especially Pasture Land and no otherwise For you were as good lose some of your inheritance as you do in my opinion Or as good lose the Land which is but the Carcas as the strength and vertue which is the Heart and Life of it for therein is the Common Advantage when the Earth yeelds most increase or fruit and a little parcell yeelds abundance of fruit Fifthly and lastly I advise to lay down all Lands of this nature upon Wheat Mesâ—en or Rye Stubble which will exceedingly thicken and improve the Soarding and if my Principles fail not will raise as good a Soard in the first year as after any Summer Corn whatsoever will in two and must do well for these Reasons First because it hath one half year more to Soard in then after the Lenton Tylth and so is somewhat Soarded before Oates Barley or Pease are sown Secondly because winter Corn groweth thin long and a stronger Straw and gives more liberty to the grass to grow and spread the thicker and the Soard will also be very rich and fruitfull I likewise advise to sow this Land as early â—as possibly you can even as soon as your other Crop is ended the sooner the better unless the Condition of the Country very much oppose it how
in the manner or way of Husbandry and Plowing or else in the Method I propose in the laying of it down to Graze or else the Stubble you lay it down upon in all which if you pursue me not expect it not all being faciable and any man may more certainly and as I conceive more delightfully work by Rule than Random I say then in the ordinary course of nature Gods blessing accompanying it it shall increase and improve for many yeares and continue untill some of the former and aforesaid Corruptions predominate again Of which my self have had large Experiences and can produce many Presidents and do but you look into and upon much of your new laid-down-Land to Graze which being continually Grazed doth put more proof into all sorts of Goods breed better feed faster milketh fruitfuller than old Pasture that is Richer for ten fifteen or twenty yeares together I have bought the purest Mutton out of Land the third the fourth or fifth year after Plowing being about eighteen or twenty shillings per Acre than any Land in those parts of near thirty shillings an Acre hath afforded and in reason it must needs be so because what Grass comes fresh is pure without Mixture and sweet being Young and tender and having no currupt Weeds of Filth to annoy it and fruitfull having heat and strength left in the Land to feed it and for continuance fear it not if Grazed for the very Grazing will Inrich it every year and Improve it untill it grow so old again and over-run with Moss Ant-hills Rushes or other corruptions that it requires Plowing and then let it have it for the Lands and thy Advantage sake I know other Pastures which indeed were Plowed nine or ten Crops and did much prejudice the Lands thereby which I exceedingly condemn yet this President answers this Objection it lying now upon the fourteenth or fifteenth year after Plowing is better than ever was since Plowing and mends every year and is rich and healthfull if not more than it ever was and would far more have abounded in fruit if Moderation had been used Another Objection may be raised which is this your new Plowed Lands are more subject to Rotting Sheep than your old Pasture I answer usually it is so and Experience hath proved the same yet if you ever found any parcell of Land Husbandred according to these directions nicely observed as aforesayd that it was layd so high and round his over-Furlongs Drained by the lower and a good Master Ditch or Trench the lowest and Plowed but three or four Crops and laid down upon the Winter Corn Stubble c. you either found little danger in it for Rotting or else no more than other Grazed Lands thereabouts was subject to for in great Rot years indeed many of your Cold Sowr Rushy Pastures Rot themselves though never plowed especially such as have either great Road-wayes Drifts or Passages through them yet observe these two directioâ—s following put case it should Rot first or second yeares then Stock it with Beasts and that prevents it or else secondly with part Sheep those barren Sheep to feed and not with a breeding Stock and part Beasts and very easie that you may have Grass at pleasure to satisfie them to the full which will probably prevent them from eating Dirt or Gravell and this wil turn thee out as much profit and secure that danger in great measure out of question As for Rushes Moss and Coldness which doth not much offend the best sort of Land I refer thee backward to its more proper place and have little more to say in the Advance of this richer sort of Land but onely that in your Separations and divisions of your greatest Pastures you be very curious in erecting Quick-set Hedges after the manner prescribed in the â—ixt Piece and the three twentieth Chaptâ—â— and be most carefull of preserving them from biting and treading and well fenced from any Annoyance maintained with constant Weeding for two or three years together all which exactly observed you shall raise upon each Lordship or Pasture Fuell and Fire-wood sufficient to maintain many Families besides the Timber which may be raised in the Hedg-rows if here and there in every Pearch be but planted an Ash Oak Elm or Witchazell all which will not onely be most profitable but most delightfull and honourable unto men of Ingenuous spirits And if to this thou wouldest but add the sowing of Kernels or planting Crab-tree Stocks here there in all your Hedg-rowes and grasting of them and preserving them precisely til they come to Trees how gallantly would this good Land nourish them what a benefit might the fruit of these Trees yeeld either in Perry or Sider to be transpored into other parts or else to relieve our poor at home of which were there plenty this dear year one third part of the Mault of this Nation might be saved and so that Barley be for Bread But more of this in his proper place which I shall present thee with as an admirable Piece of Improvement of it self upon any Lands it is capable to be made as a new Addition in Orcharding Improvements Here two or three words more to shew the great Prejudice men suffer for want of these Plantations when they make divisions or separations in their Lands by new Quick-setting it When men have planted the Quick they conceive then they have don nor observing perhaps neither to planâ— it in the Over-most and Fattest Earth nor for to Root all their Sets in the best Mould nor when they have done to preserve it from Sheep and Cattell nor Mould it Weed it Hedg it and secure it as it shall stand in need for three four or five of the first yeares All which were it done upon all Opportunities No man almost in the Nation would be either at want of Firing or Timber especially were all such Fields Marshes Heaths and Commons thus separated and divided all which are fecible and might be done with great profit to all and prejudice to none I am ashamed to speak so much in these so easie and wel-known wayes of Husbandry but that there is so much neglect thereof as if men minded more their own and Publique Confusion and Ruin than Profit and Advancement Some will cast Banks and Ditches for separation and plant no Quick at all in them and so destroy as much ground as if they Quick-set it and spoyl the ground to no advantage and others will Quick-set and never Fence it Weed nor Mould it and so it either perisheth at first or else groweth dwindled lean and barren not worth any thing or else suffer it to be bitten or eaten with Cattell or else stifled with cutting or plashing before it is ripe or ready that it comes to no thickness growth or fruitfulness In all which were there but a little Patience and Addition of a little more cost and paines
for Improvement by Liming and by all the Subsequent Compositions All old Resty Land that hath not been Tilled of late although it be coarse of it own nature and yeeld little Fruit yet by Plowing according to former directions all Advantages observed for three or four Crops which I fear not but the heart and strength thereof will bear it out without Prejudice I have known Six or Seven Crops taken of Land not worth above five shillings or six shillings an Acre and it very little the worse as generally all the wood-Wood-Lands are apt to run to Moss and Fearn Goss and Broom and to be so extremely over-run therwith that it bears nothing else and if they be not tilled according to that ancient Principle all Husban-men retain every ten or fifteen years they will runn into these Extremes so far as that they will be of little use so all other Lands of a better nature subject to these Extremes no better way can possibly be than Moderate Tillage according to the former rules prescribed And in thy Tillage are these special Opportunities to Improve it either by Liming Marling Sanding Earthing Mudding Snayl-codding Mucking Chalking Pidgeons-Dung Hens-Dung Hogs-Dung or by any other means as some by Rags some by coarse Wool by Pitch Markes and Tarry Stuff any Oyly Stuff Salt and many things more yea indeed any thing almost that hath any Liquidness Foulness Saltness or good Moysture in it is very naturall Inrichment to almost any sort of Land all which as to all sorts of Land they are of an exceeding Mellorating nature and of these more particularly And first for Liming it is of most excellent use yea so great that whole Countries and many Countles that were naturally as Barren as any in this Nation had formerly within less than half an Age supply with Corn out of the Fieldon Corn-Country and now is and long hath been ready to supply them and doth and hath brought their Land into such a Posture for bearing all sorts of Corn that upon Land not worth above one or two shillings an Acre they will raise well Husbanded with Lime as good Wheat Barley and White and Gray Pease as England yeelds yea they wil take a parcell of Land from off a Lingy Heath or Common not worth the having nay many will not have it to Husbandry it and will raise most gallant Corn that naturally is so Barren worth five or six pound an Acre And though some object it is good for the Father but bad for the Son I answer so are all Extremes whatsoever that is to Plow it after Liming so long as is either any spirit left in the Lime or heart in the Land or it will bear any sort of Corn or Grain it will ruin it for Posterity But if that after Liming men would but study Moderation in their Tillage anid not because the Land yeelds such abundance of Corn Plow or Till it so long as it will carry Corn no nor so long as it will carry good Corn But if men would after good Liming take three four or five Crops and then lay down their Lands to Graze it would not be the least prejudice or if upon the laying of it down men would but indifferently Manure it or else upon the last Crop you intend to Sow Dung it well before Sowing and lay it down upon the Rye or Wheat Stubble it would produce a sweet Turf and I am confident prove excellent Pasture as good again as it was before but if after it is layd down you would Manure it once again a little Manure now will produce more fruit than as much more upon the old Soard it would be warrished for ever Many men have had ten Crops of gallant Corn after one substantiall Liming some more upon very reasonable Land of about six shillings eight pence an Acre some Land worth a little more but more Land less worth and some upon Land not worth above one or two shillings an Acre have got many gallant Crops upon a Liming as aforesaid some men have had and received so much profit upon their Lands upon once Liming as hath payd the purchase of their Lands I my self had great Advance thereby yet I lived twenty miles from Lime and fetched it so far by Wagon to lay upon my Lands and so not capable to make like Advantage as other Borderers The Land naturall and suitable for Lime is your light and sandy Land and mixed sound Earth so also is your Gravell but not so good and your wet and cold Gravell is the worst except your cold hungry Clay which is worst of all but all mixed Lands whatever are very good As for your Lime it is not of a hot burning nature as most men conceive and do strongly believe and many have wrote 't is true it is of a wasting burning and consuming nature before or in the slacking or melting of it and may be possibly in the meal or spirit of it but in the use of it and working it into and with the Land and Earth and in the production of the fruit it seems appeares to be Coldest and most sadning of Land of any Soyl whatsoever and that for these Reasons 1. Because of it self it is a heavy and weighty substance and sinkes deep and loseth it self sooner than any Soyl whatsoever if you be not very carefull in the keeping of it up and rasing of it you will lose it before you are aware of it or can suspect it 2. Because it so alters your lightest Ry Land that though it be naturally Sandy and Gravelly that it never before would bear any thing but Ry or Oates yet by one good Liming it will be reduced to bear as good Lammas or Red straw Wheat with Barley and Pease as your strong clay Land 3. Were it of so hot a nature then it would have the best operation upon your coldest wettest spewing Land upon which it hath none and all Experience shews the contrary As I remember about twelve or fourteen quarters of Lime will very wel Lime an Acre you may also over-Lime it as well as under-Lime it Also a mixture of Lime Manure and Soyl together is very excellent especially for a few Crops and so lay down to Graze I conceive is best but by any means Till not long for I say it is possible the Land may yeeld Corn being so exceedingly in Tillage and so well wrought as long almost as any Earth is left in it I have seen many parts Tilled so long as there hath been little lest but small Stones Flints and Pebles A mad Cmstome fly from it your Lime will sink downwards exceedingly use all means possible to keep it as much aloft as you can else you lose it and the benefit of it and remember it whatever you forget and then you may plow and work your Land as you do with any other Soyl. CHAP. XXI Sheweth the nature
as well as ours I shall make bold to discover them to my intendment for as to his I shall never attain and that is to incourage their Plantations because Lands may be highly advanced by them and when thou hast the Art of planting dismysteried to thee at large as will be very shortly fall upon them And because Land of great quantities cannot be advanced to that height as lesser parcels which are within the power and purse of the Gardner which with his constant paines watching toilings hazards and adventures he runs he may make one hundred pound possibly out of some one Acre of Land if his commodity prosper well as some have done but in the case of non prosperity some are half undone again as if it thrive not exceedingly in the growth prosper not as well in the ripening escape frost and thieves and meet not with a good market what it will come to then I determine not neither doth Mr. Speed consider of these things and how then it would do when thousand of Acres should come to be planted therewith I know not I shal leave it to him to resolve and onely take out Turneps mainly intending my design which will be sowed at small cost and charge and grow upon indifferent Land and bring forth great increase and are of more generall use and in case much Land be sown therewith and they come to so great plenty that the Markets will not carry them away at such a proportionable rate as the Gardner can afford them then may they be disposed of to the feeding of sheep and Cattel which they will doe and to good advantage too and in a dear year to make bread thereof half meal half boyled Turnep mixed and wrought together into dough and kneaded and made into bread will make a good and delightfull food as hath been by many experimented already yea as Sir Richard Weston affirmed to my selfe he did feed his swine with them though all men hold the contrary that Swine will not eat a Turnep so I say too no more than a Scot will Swines-flesh yet the boyling them at first and giving them to his Hogs in good wash and afterward all boyled that at the end they came to eat them raw would run after the Carts and pull them forth as they gathered them So that upon these accounts and because I know it will bring Land to a good advance as unto 8. pound 10. pound or possibly 12. pound per acre I propose this especially but for the fuller discovery hereof in the mysterie I leave that to be more fully discussed in the Art of planting and should that fail of seasonable comming forth or of a full discovery it is but about eight or ten quarts of seed sowed upon an acre of dry sound land indifferent rich land well plowed digged and harrowed as for corn and then after sowed thin and even with some composition with it then slightly covered with a bush some sowed early where the land will do some late when other crops are off selling them or spending them at a Market-priâ— they will bring forth the advantage promised and so I have indeavoured to supply this deficiency in husbandry also in some poor measure the want of improving our garden-fruits our Lands being as capable of improvement this way and as high as is by their Brabant husbandry and so am come to my desired end at last all which I commend to thy patience and thy self and it to the word of our Lord Christ his blessing FINIS A Table of the most principall Heads and branches of this Discourse as they are laid down under the severall main Peeces of the Book and illustrated in that Chapter discoursing each particular Peece Chap. I. SHeweth the antiquity and necessity of Husbandry pag. 3 4 5. Chap. II. The causes of barrenness as they are in men 6 7 8. The causes of barrenness as in the land it selfe 9. to 14. The first Peece contains the 3 4 5 and 6 Chap. Treating of the Remedies against Barrenness and particularly of Floating and Watering Land Chap. III. Sheweth what Land lyeth best for advancement by water 17. Of impounding water upon land in what case 18. Of what nature the best land for watering is pag. 19. 20. Chap. IV. V. How and where to begin your first watering and how to proceed 21. How to make the floating and drayning Trench 22. What makes the watering land so fruitfull 23. The best flowing season upon all lands 24 25. The advantages of watering land 25. Presidents of watered land ibid. 26. As well too much trenching as too little ibid. Chap. VI. A larger explanation both of the floating and draining Trench 27. How to prevent heaping of the earth in trenching 28. The manner of levelling land by the plough to water 29. The speediest way for soarding Land after levelling 30 31. To level by spade and what a man may do a day 30. The second Peece hath the 7 8 9 10 Chap. Containing draining Fen reducing Bog and recovering Sea-land Chap. VII To drain a bog and where the water lieth 33. What makes a bog and how to carry a drain 34. 35 36. Best and certainest way to dâ—stroy the bog totally 36. The great prejudice by crooks and angles in water-courses ibid. How to make deep drains without any danger to cattel ibid. Floating a bog best destroyes it pag. 37. Chap. VIII Answereth severall objections made against the probabilities of so great advance by floating 38 Cutting Water-courses streight no small advantage 42. Some Mils destroy more than they are worth 43. Chap. IX Sheweth a brief and plain discovery of the most feacible way of Fen-draining or regaining drowned lands or in bounding of the Sea from it 45. Hindrances of Fen-draining 51 52. The cure or best and speediest way of reducing drowned lands unto perfect soundnes 53. The best way to improve drowned lands 58. Chap. X. Directions to make and use severall Tooles or Instruments which shall much facilitate the work 65 The manner and form of a true and speediest Levell that I can devise 66. The Trencheng Plough 67. The Turving Spade 68. The Trenching Spade ibid. The Paring Spade 70. The use of the Paring Spad 71. The Third Peece hath the 11 12 13 14. Chap. Sheweth to inclose without offence prevent depopulation that is most common attendant and appurtenant to enclosure how to make severable Errable coÌ„mon field Lands common Heaths Mores Forrests Wasts to every particular Interests the Common-wealths great advantage Chap. XI Treateth of Improving Land by Pasture Reproves Depopulation proves excellent Advantages by Inclosure and taketh away the usuall Scandalls laid upon it pag. 72. Chap. XII Sheweth the Land capable of Enclosure and the Method of it how it advanceth the Publick-Weal and all particulars interests 77. Chap. XIII Sheweth the tillage and the great profit thereof and the great Advance is made
will not neither sometimes can the Improvement be made upon any unless upon all joyntly or else upon an unsuppotable Charge or Burthen As also the not cutting straight such watercourses of such brookes and gutters that are exceeding crooked which some that would cannot because of others interests that will not abundance of the best land in this Nation is hereby lost and wonderfull Improvements hindered the waters raised the lands flouded sheep rotted and cattell spoyled all by this neglect The remedies to all the three aforesaid Prejudices to resolve the greatest advantage to the Common-wealth and then command them either unto a loving Conjunction in the Exchange and Improvement or else disabling any one to hinder another that is desirous of it giving such recompence for any dammage he shall make as shall be adjudged reasonable by indifferent men or competent Judges A Fourth is Unlimited Commons or Commoning without stint upon any Heath Moor Forrest or other Common This is a great Prejudice to many poor men both Cottiers and Land-Holders who have not of their own to stock their Commons and so lose all that have least need and for whom those Commons were chiefly intended And also a great hindrance to all for being without that every man laies on at random and as many as they can get and so Overstock the same that ordinarily they pine and starve their Goods therein and once in four or five yeares you shall observe such a Rot of Sheep that all that the Oppressor hath gained by eating out his poor Neighbours all the other years is swept away in one and so little advantage redoundeth to any So that many thousand Acres of Land are as it were useless which were all men limited according to their Proportion of Land or Dwellings to which the Common is due the poor that could not stock theirs might set them and reap some benefit by them And were they easily stinted their Commons might be as good as their own Severals to every man that hath an interest A Fifth Prejudice is A Law wanting to compell all men to kill their Wonts or Moales the good Husband doth and the slothfull man neglects it and thereby raiseth such a Magazine or Nursery that they cannot be destroyed but as fast as one destroies them the other nurseth a fresh spply to fill the Country the Prejudice is greater than can be reported The sixt Prejudice is the not compelling men to plant Wood where they do cut down then to set again a treble proportion or more to what they do destroy especially now so much of the gallant Wood of the Nation is exposed to sale We forget that it is a mighty pillar in the upholding this poor Island and how honorable a custom it is in other Nations that look what Timber they cut down they must plant five or ten times as much in stead thereof And that all men might be compelled to plow their coarser old mossy rushy bankie pasture Lands being now fittest for it and will be bettered by it and suffers for want of it and the Country needs it and none prejudiced and for the best land every man left to his own liberty A Seventh Prejudice is the want of a through searching of the Bowels of the Earth a business more fit to be undertaken by the Honourable Representation of the whole Common-wealth than by any particular man Whence are all our Mines of Lead Tinne Iron Coales and Silver Mines in Wales were they not once hid and as uncertain as we are now certain of them and what should hinder but that in many places else the like may be discovered as suppose Coal in Northampton Buckingham and Oxf. Sh. what a great benefit to those Countries would it be Nay if some sorts of Stone could bee but found out in some other parts what might it arise unto Nay say that either Marl Chalk or Lime or some other fat Earth could be found in some other parts where they are wanting how much would it inrich those parts And who can say but Silver may as well be found in other places as in Wales or other parts I am sure that no man knowes but he that hath searched it and the hundred thousand part of this Nation hath never yet been tryed The Eighth Prejudice may be the many Watermills which destroy abundance of gallant Land by pounding up the water to that height even to the very top of the ground and above the naturall height that it lyeth swelling and soaking and spewing that it runneth very much land to a Bogg or to mire or else to Flagg and Rush or Mareblab which otherwise was as gallant land naturally as could be I am confident many a thousand a year are thus destroyed some mills worth above 10 or 12. pound per an destroy lands worth 20. 30. or 40. per. an I know it of my own knowledge I had some few yeares since a Mill Dam in my land which destroyed one half of a gallant meaddow meanes was used that it was removed and that very land is returned to his perfect pureness again I prescribe not the utter destruction of all of some I do and others to have their water brought to a lower gage and where they are wanting Wind-mills erected as in all the Fen Country are no other or else incouragement given to some that I am confident are able to discover a compleat way for grinding all sorts of Corn by the strength of horse and man as feasible as malt is I am able to give some assistance my self to this work but shall far prefer others thereto A Gentleman that hath waded so deeply therein as hath discovered publiquely his modell at Lambeth deserveth great incouragement And the last though not the least is the raign of many abominable Lusts as Sloth and Idleness with their Daughters Drunkenness Gaming Licentious Liberty Were not the greatest and best and all men made to be usefull to the body why continue many men as members cut off from it as if they were made to consume it are neither usefull in their bodies minds or purses to the common good how comes City and Country to be filled with Drones and Rogues our highwaies with hackers and all places with sloth and wickedness I say no more but pray some quickning Act to the execution of our Lawes against these worse than heathenish Abhominations All which with many more great annnoyances and Annusances though some may think every man will be ready to remove but we being under such a drowsie Age that though each particular shall be advantaged as well as the whole body yet it will not be indeavored as far as I am able to see into mens minds or practices are no way possibly removeable but by Your Honours either compelling them by acting Ingenuity themselves or else so incouraging others that are desirons thereof that None may Prejudice Improvements by denying any liberty for carrying on the Work receiving reasonable satisfaction
Author THE way is new my friend thou seem'st to go We should incourage Art But thou must know Thou l't meet With Criticks and back biting foes Bad men the best of Works will still oppose If but what only pleaseth all mens sight Should come abroad no Work should come to light Goood is made better by Community It 's Publique good to quicken industry Thou 'st spent thy time thy Paines with great Expence On Countries Good for love not Recompence Let others read I 'le labour what I can To imitate this Compleat Husbandman A true Friend to thee as thou to all P. W. To Captain W. Blith upon his Improved Improver FEw upon search amongst the multitude Of human race appear who are endu'd With such a noble Genius as by art Can heighten Nature Fewer this impart For 't is an Axiom unto must unknown That that 's the best of good which most is shown Uuless some Patents for the same requite With publiqne recompence their private mite How then ought all to Count this Author rare Who by experience and observant care Knows how to husband grounds to their best use And doth to publique light what 's known produce Who clearly aims in what he doth unfold At Common good still adding new to old He gave us heretofore to understand The Art of floating and of Watering Land Taught us how Fens and Bogs we ought to drain How each one might by fair Enclosure gain How antient Pasture might by tillage mend Till'd ground by Grazing to improvement tend What soyl and compost for each ground is good And what waies further best the growth of Wood. To these this third Edition doth discover The most approved means to husband Claver The art of planting Liquorish descries Of Maddder Woad and Weld for richer dies The Planting Cole-seed Flax and Hemp's declar'd And how the Ploughs expences may be spar'd How of especiall use ground may be made For Gardens and for Orchards is displaid Which this Survey of husbandry discovers At easie Rates but not without endeavours Improveth Land to three or five Degrees Held forth most plain not kept within skies But casts it all in such a curious mould To raise from one to ten yea Twentyfold Lastly the Souldier doth example yield How he should till as well as fight the field How swords should turn to plough-shares when warres cease And what imployment suits with times of peace Thine upon the publique score T. C. To the Husbandman Farmer or Tenant TO you of all others I might spare thit paines you the very practitioners you that trade in Husbandry of some of you I have high things to report both for your industry and activity and though I am confident all men are thirsty enough after profit and increase yet few studiously industrious in this design though some esteem it matter of greatest moment yet you will not all be found patronizers hereof there is such a scandall and prejudice among many of you against new projections that I shall beseech you to take a loving admonition in two or three particulars The first is an Epidemicall disease and little less are the succeeding and it is a great mischief to your selves and the Common-wealth and that is such an immoderate plowing your land some plow far more than they can Til or Manure and others all they have in common though never so much others plowing so oft and low that they draw out the marrow of it and these are the great Improverishers of your gallant old pasture though fit enough to plow might be best advanced thereby with moderation but into both these extremes men are so apt to run so fast that I desire to stop their course a little and shall make bold to tell them that when half or one third part of so much land as many of you Till shall with that very soyl and half the labour and seed saved yeeld you as much corn as all that great quantity scramblingly husbanded that then you are ill husbands which you wil confess if that you wil but grant me that which no man wil deny that one Acre purely husbandryed and what need any be otherwise or any break up more than he is able well to compass will be as good as two or three in many mens ordinary practise but in some of your whole-sale husbandmen that plow all before them four or five Acres will not ballance one purely husbanded then judge so much land preserved from impoverishment so much seed and cost preserved and yet as great increase whether the opposite actors be not enemies to themselves families and Common-wealth The second abuse is want of good tillage wee lose our hopes excedingly by this and herein we must both have respect to season land and corn for good seasons at all times cannot be expected yet of two evills chuse the least I am confident better sometimes lose the land than land seed and all your labour as many do that outslip the season but for prevention begin earlier I am confident though it may admit of some inconveniencies sometimes yet at other times it is out of question but generally both Summer and Winter seed-time carries it away sure it hath these advantages that if it prosper not you may sow it again or if the latter part of seed time at Michaelmas time prove wet you are well having sowed before or the latter part of seed-time in the Spring prove dry as most oft it doth you have prevented that and what is the great danger of growing proud in Winter that is to mee a vertue and if in the Spring it is easily taken down also and if thou fearest weeds I am of opinion that the stronger and thicker any corn is it preserves it self the best from weeds but there is a Medium in all things too thick sowing may be as bad but this ever observe that the earlier thou sowest the thinner thou maiest sow thy winter corn and summer too if the season be good and land dry and sound And secondly to your land you must have respect too Land in good tilth in good heart and sound in a good season will out-cast its very marrow through the Lords blessing expect fruit enough Men much wrong their corn in not giving their Lands sufficient workmanship I am not precise in the number of Plowing nor Harrowing but just so much and no more than preserves the Land from weedes and best brings the land into such a composition that your land mould well I shall not justify the old Proverb here No balkes no corn I say not balkes all corn even cleanly plowing is most commendable and most profitable to some grain more tilage to some less is required yet to none no less than may both cover well and yield good bottome and rooting to the Corn. And thirdly for your Corn some graines require more tillage others less some will better beat a drier season some a wetter some grain more subject to
one weed than to another some grain wil do best with two summers and others with one In all which consider and advise thy self as much as thou canst of the nature of them all and make out what experiences thou canst thy self and somewhat incline to the most ingenuous usage and custome of thy Country In some cases a good custome is instructive but I 'll be brief here that I may be a little larger elsewhere following The fourth and last abuse is a calumniating and depraving every new Invention of this most culpable are your mouldy old leavened husbandmen who themselves and their forefathers have been accustomed to such a course of husbandry as they will practise and no other their resolution is so fixed no issues or events whatsoever shall change them if their neighbour hath as much corn of one Acre as they of two upon the same land or if another plow the same land for strength and nature with two horses and one man as well as he and have as good corn as he hath been used with four horse and two men yet so he will continue Or if an Improvement be discovered to him and all his neighbours hee 'l oppose it and degrade it What forsooth saith he who taught you more wit than your forefathers would they have neglected so great advantage if there had been any they kept good hospitality and made shift to breed up many children c. and I know not what simple chaff to blind themselves this proud unteachable spirit an ingenious man abhorrs which banes and poysons the very plenty of our Nation These prejudices both upon your minds and practises which boult you out from wealth and glory my dear friends and fellow husbandmen I pray you lay aside and doe but in charity walk with me a little through this discourse and I shall hope to satisfy that there is no other end but common good proposed The poor thy posterity and all Interest advantage here intended by him that is as studious of thine the Common wealths Improvement as his own W. B. The severall waies of Improvement or Advancement of the Lands of this Nation many whereof are undiscovered and most of them little practised which being experienced would be the Common-wealths glory and a pattern to other Nations FOr the dscovery whereof by Gods leave some particulars shall bee laid down as generalls to be discovered And that I may speak to the understanding of all men especially those who have little or nothing at all considered of such things nor so much as ever suffered the practique part of Husbandry to come into their minds or those who in respect of their more noble and high imployment have lived and conversed in another Region about the weighty affaires of the Nation onely receiving living upon the present profits of their Lands not minding their Lands advance And some few others who have lived more above the creature and conversed much in heaven and so are more unacquainted with the language tearmes of Husbandry therfore I will deliver my self in our own naturall Country Language and in our ordinary usuall homâ—-spun tearmes especially because I can speak no other in as few words as I can possibly conceive it clear to each apprehension and therfore before I begin to enter the discourse at large give me leave to premise the Excellency Necessity and Usefulness of improvement or good husbandry And then the discourse shall follow under these two generall heads 1. First I will discover the causes of Barrenness upon all Land and what corruptions both in the Land it self and in mens opinions practices and customes must be removed 2. The second generall being the Remedies and Preventions of the said Barrennesse and the meanes of reducing some to its utmost former Fruitfulness and Improving others to the greatest advantage it is capable of wherein that great Improvement promised is held forth at large All which will be discoursed under Six Severall Heads or Peeces of Improvement which are made good 1 BY floting or watering all sorts of Lands which lie under that capacity 2. By drayning or reducing of Boggy Fenny Sea or drowned Lnds to firmness and fruitsuiness 3 Shall be by such a way of Enclosure of common Fields Heaths Moors or Forrests as shall admit of no depopulation nor prejudice to any particular Interest whatsoever 4. Shall be by such way of Plowing or comeing some old Pasture Land already spoyled for want thereof as shall much better it and by so pasturing others already destroyed by plowing as to recover it and divers other waies to improve your lands to a great advantage 5 Shall be a discovery of such simples or Materialls as Soyl compounded with the Earth with the nature and use of both so as thereby you shall raise so much more Corn unto this Nation as shall make good the Improvement promised 6 By a new Election or Plantation of divers sorts of Woods and Timber as in few yeares a man may make sufficient buildings thereof yea upon divers sorts of Land in this Nation at twenty yeares growth it wil arise unto an incredible height and bigness yea as fast again as it naturally groweth CHAP. I. Treateth of the Excellency Necessity and Vsefulness of Improvement and good Husbandry WHich appeareth partly by the Antiquity of it for every thing is the more excellent the more ancient and nearer it comes to God the first being of all things which as all things nearest the Center move more strongly so all Excellency appeares most evidently the nearer if I may speak with reverence to that great Majesty the great Husbandman God himself First in his making the world hee made all Creatures and all Plants Fruits Trees Herbs and all bearing Seed for the food of Man and Beast He also made those more excellent and glorious Creatures as the Light the Day and Night the Firmament the Earth and Seas the Sun Moon and Starrs all to be serviceable and ministers unto the Creatures relief and all the Creatures subservient to Man and Man to Husbandize the fruits of the Earth and dress and keep them for the use of the whole Creation So God was the Originall and first Husbandman the patern of all Husbandry and first projector of that great design to bring that old Masse and Chaos of confusion unto so vast an Improvement as all the world admires and subsists from And having given man such a Patern both for precept and president for his incouragement he makes him Lord of all untill the fall And after that God intending the preservation of what he made notwithstanding the great curse upon Adam Eve and Serpent the Earth not going free but a curse of Barrennesse cast upon it also yet Adam is sent forth to till the Earth and improve it In the sweat of his face he must eat bread until be return to the Earth again And so down to Cain and Abel the one Husbanding the
part of the Land by the severall casting up of much mould upon the Grass all which are hinderanees very great to the increase of the owner But for the Ant-hils if my opinion fail not excedingly they are grand enemies to the Grazier and Husbandmans advantage they destroy more than men observe I do beleeve that in some great Pastures in England there is one fourth part of the clear fruit of that Land lost by the multiplicity of them and little better in other pastures by the Molehills for although some are of opinion that the Ant-hills are little or no prejudice they are much mistaken and they will clearly bee convinced thereof if they will but either seriously consider the quantity of grass that groweth upon them or else consider the rareness of Cattle feeding upon them and then also consider the quantity of Ground and good Ground they cover will easily appear the great prejudice by them And that the sand and gravell washed from the Mole-hill is a great cause of rotting Sheep I absolutely affirm But thereto some may object they make more ground I Answer they do such as it is destroy a lesser good quantity of Land and add possibly a double bad but let them consider that this Addition is a great Substraction for if you weigh what I said before they bear little or no grass a little wild Time and speary harsh grass that Cattell eat not but a little thereof in case of hunger And I am sure they cover a great deal of good land Doe but really consider it upon experience made upon one Acre and thou shalt find that one Acre plain or bancked shall do as much service as an Acre and near an half shall do that is so hilly And again if you do not flatter your selves in your own judgments you will find that while the Land was plain if you consider the fruit it then yeelded and the Cattle it then maintained you will find there is no proportion between what it then kept and what it now maintaines for in my experience I find that old resty Land much overrun with these hills much degenerates and doth not nor hath of late yeares kept the former usuall Stock it kept before it grew so hilly and so old by near or about one fourth part which I am sure is as much or more advantage or clear profit the Grazier Breeder or Tenant need expect and although some will not acknowledge their experience herein yet many I am sure they find it by losing proof besides the danger of casting their Cattle and Sheep betwixt the Hills which oft destroyes them Another cause of Barrenness is Bogginess or Mieriness which turns all Lands both bad good and better into such a state of Barrenness unfruitfulness that it in some parts almost destroyes the Land and in other parts it wholly destroyes it and in some places makes it worse than nothing foâ— in stead of yeelding some fruit it not onely yeeldeth none but corrupts and prejudiceth other Lands on which it borders and it self most dangerous to mischieve the Goods or Chattell that do pasture upon the same and so may be accidentally many degrees worse than nothing Another cause of Barrenness is the Overflowing and constant abiding or resting of the waters of the Sea Fenns Rivers standing Lakes or Pools for be it fresh or salt water if it lye constantly upon it it assuredly destroyeth it although some more some less according to the deepness and barrenness of the water which covers it the soundness of the ground on which it lyeth so is the fruitfulness more or less perspicuous Some pretend strange causes which my plainess fathomes not nor much affects our Country Farmers now Yet one more I must not pass by that is such New Inventions for the Improving of Land discovered by some young Husband-man at experiences as I conceive the use wherof will rather destroy Land and wast a mans profits therupon than advance some such I have lately found in a little book called New Inventions for the Improving lands Printed for J. S. and sold at the sign of the Ball on Adling hill 1646. By which I fearing some willing to lay out themselvs in Husbandry experience should be beguiled by his so great overtures of Advantage I shall onely speak to two or three particulars and leave the rest to thy leisure to consider of First As to his manuring Plough manuring Wagon manuring Stone Corroding Harrow or Corroding Rakes which he pretends as Improvements so far as my shallow Principles will compass are likely to prove Impoverishers because while a man stands to dress his Land with fine mould in which is a little strength his Land decayes for want of good soyl or ranck muck which he may sooner lay on work into his Land by the old way than he may his fine earth by his new devised mysticall Instruments not one of them discovered neither but puzzle thy self thou mayst about the thoughts thereof and though thou givest twice as much for the book as it is worth for so thou must thou art but where thou wast at first And for his Seed-Barrâ—w could he but hold that forth to set Corn as he pretends it might be of some good use because certainly setting Corn could it be done with speed and at a certain depth and well covered would be worth discovering but of this I have as little hope and as low an esteem as of his other aforesaid Instruments because he holds it out to contain one Tunnell onely for his Seed which did it contain a hundred would more likely prove for in setting one seed at once no Engine can come near the hand-setting as I conceive And this I charge as a great prejudice and may be as a barrenning the land while men stand looking for great things they neglect their ordinary and old way of Hushandry far better Another cause of Barrenness which this Gentleman puts as a meanes of Improvement is the setting up or banking into a mans land the Rain water or cold Spring water and then trampling in dung by carting and cattell as he saith will raise and increase mire and dirt and so it will I must confess but what that mireand dirt is worth I know not the dung would be excellent good of it self but what it will be in this course of husbandry I not only much question but affirm that in all my experience that treading poching and holing land in winter was an exceeding great hinderance to Corn or Grass that Spring nay some Land I have known so poched by Cattels treading though fothered upon the same both in Kent and Essex and many other parts that it hath not recovered of divers years And what strength or vertue cold spring-water or rain-water hath to fatten any land I know not but wonder then how we have any barren land in England And to make good his Assertion he appeales to them that
under this Capacity you must seriously consider the Situation of your Lands If your Lands be a little hilly and your Brooks run more swiftly more Lands may be brought under them Also if your Lands lye more shelving or descending towards the River or any low descent whatever that your water may fall off as fast as it cometh on the quicker and easier will your Land be Improved especially if your Land be sound light or gravelly This is a most gallant opportunity let your Lands be what they will or of what nature soever if it lie descending the advance will be great enough if you have either a constant stream or Landflood And here let me good Reader advertise thee of one Piece of husbandry most highly commended of most men And truly so it is very commendable and excellent compar'd either with those that use none or else neglect this where it may be done which is this Many Gentlemen have assaid to water their Lands by setting the Water in Pooles Ponds or Lakes upon them and continuing it standing and soaking many daies and weeks together yea some practise it although their lands have layen descending and then draw their Sluces or remove their stoppages and drain away all their water again to which way of flowing I incourage all men rather than neglect all and honour them therein yet if they please to make experiment of the succeeding way of floating they will easily let this fall The excellency whereof consists in the speedy taking away the Water as soon as it is brought on And onely suffer it to run over and so with all speed run off into some drayning Trench again The Method whereof shall at large be handled by which such a concealed Advantage will be discovered that men will wonder how they were so easily deceived Wherein I shall be somewhat larger because able men much differ both in their opinions of both waies of watering as also in their manner of working the same My advise shall he never cover thy Land with a standing Water unless for a day or two or else in case thy Land should be so Levell that it hath no descent at all then better set the Water upon it than neglect it so thou be sure to drain it after one or two days standing and then bring it on again take it off again as aforesaid yet it is impossible ever to produce the like effect as it shall according to the subsequent directions Because it neither receives the full fruit or fatness of the water so fully and kindly nor is grazable and feedable so soon nor yet so richly as in the other kind of working 2. After thou hast considered the Situation of thy Lands as aforesaid then search and find out the lowest part of thy Lands and there having found such a Levell or descent as will lay all thy Lands dry again as thou shalt have occasion to float them which drain must be wrought So deep as that thou maist go under that corrupt feeding or springy moisture that breeds and feeds the Rush Flag and Mareblab or else causes thy Land to turn Spewing Morish or boggy which two Advantages if thou hadst discovered and found upon thy Land which little Land in England but hath one or both of them come to the third Direction and 3. Therein consider seriously the nature of thy Land which if it be cold and of a sad Nature moyst and spewing and lie very Levell It will require then a very good Land-flood or a constant River to overflow it and other barren hungry Water will do very little good thereof But if either thy Land be Gravell or of a sound warm sandy or mixed nature and any whit descending then any Running stream will have a gallant Operation The warmer lighter and sounder is the Land the greater is the Advantage These particulars discovered out of question thou hast a wonderfull advantage before thee especially if thou hast any great length and quantity of Land along the River or by a great Road-way side or else hast any good Land-floods from great Towns or Cities make as much of these Advantages and prize them as thy Lands for though hereby thou canst make thy Lands no more yet thou mayst make them so much better as thou canst desire Suppose some man of great credit should say Sir you have two hundred Acres in such a place what if I should lay you a hundred more in the midst of them he would wonder at it yet because of the credit of him that spake it he doth not wholly disdain it and if it could be done he deserved thanks for it but he doth do it really though not in kind that advanceth or Improves the Land but one third part that makes Two Acres as good as Three much more he that makes One as good as Three or Five or Ten as before this watering business be done shall clearly appear so I descend to the working out the same I had forgot another sort of Land which is your Boggy Quagmiry Land no less capable of a mighty Improvement if it fall under the opportunity of floating and ly any whit descending CHAP. IV. Shewes how to work thy Land and Water so as to reduce it and work out the Improvement promised WHerein a little consider of the way of both fitting thy Land to thy Water thy Water to thy Land with the truest naturallest properest Seasons for bringing it on and taking it off and thou shalt see an admired issue And being resolved that thou hast an opportunity upon thy Lands to make this Improvement out Plot out thy Land into such a Modell or Platform as thou maist be sure that all thy Land thou designest to this Improvement may not fail therin I mean that all thy Lands thou resolvest to float may be under the true Levell of thy Water And that this may be I shall here discover to thee how to carry thy Water upon the Levell that thou shalt lose no ground neither carry it so dead that thou canst not kindly work it this precisely observed may be in stead of many Persian Wheels so highly commended by Mr Gabriel Plats which Wheel is also commendable may be very usefull where either no good falls can be gained nor other wales the water cannot be raised to higher parts of ground you desire to water The description of which Persian Wheel I hope to give thee before this discourse be ended And also intend in my Additions if not where I describe figure out the Persian Wheel to discover a far better Engine that shal with less strength raise a greater quantity of water for any use And now for the Method or way of working thy Water upon thy Land without this Wheel which will require a double stream one to drive it and another to be raised without the charge of all other appurtenances to the said Wheel belonging as Dams
to receive that so it may carry it all away plausibly within it self for the drayning Trench be sure thou indeavour to carry it as near upon a straight Line as is possible the Reason shall afterward appear This work is of more advantage and more to thy profit than thou imaginest but thy exercise therein will teach thee more Thou must also well consider the proper seasons of the year bringing on thy water which is in the beginning of Winter when Grass groweth least and beginns to fail and is clean eaten off thy Land all Winter long is very seasonable for this work and the best season to take it off is in or about the beginning of March thou maiest make what Improvement almost thou desirest also upon thy moyst cold Land if thou observe the directions given But for thy warm sound Land thou maiest continue thy water and keep it working upon thy Land almost all the year round Provided that thou keep it not too long upon a place for thou must be sure to have an especiall eye that thou soak not thy Land too much that Cattell treading or Grazing upon it foyl it not for thâ—n the Rush will come upon thee and it will overgrow thee and exceedingly prejudice thy hopes mistake me not I speak not here to advise thee to continue thy water thus long upon one place but be ever removing it from place to place but especially to shew the proper seasons to make use of this Piece of Improvement Thou hast also another great advantage hereby having water drawn over thy Land thou art in such a Capacity that in case of drought in time of Summer thou needest not to fear it thou mayst now and then wet over thy Land in the heat thereof when Grass if it have but Moysture will grow far faster in so hot a time than any but be sure not to soak thy ground too much Keep thy Land rather in a thirsting condition not glutted ready to spew it up again so maiest thou preserve thy Land green and fruitfull when others are scorched all away Then may a weekes Grass or a Load of Hay possibly be worth Three or Four I my self by these opportunities have cut twenty four Load in a Meadow where I cut but five or six the year before when Hay sold at a great value The directions exactly followed I will lose my Credit if thou fail of the effect promised And for thy encouragement I will give thee a president or two Certain Acres of light sandy Land were taken for a Term of one and twenty yeares at the value of one shilling six pence per Acre and that was more than it was worth a little Brook with a Land-flood issuing out of a Common Field was brought over it the Land levelled and made fit and even to receive it for it was very Irregular and of great high Ridges and Furrowes before after the manner of that Country and after two yeares working thirty shillings an Acre would have been given for it I my self offered it and some of that Land also was my own but it was refused being wrought just by the aforesaid Directions I have made the like Improvement my self upon Lands of the same nature to as great advancement as is here spoken off too tedious to discourse M. Plat also in his book produceth a president of Lands Improved by Water with the charge of three hundred shillings to be worth three hundred pounds per annum but what it was worth before the three hundred shillings were expended upon it he saith not but no question very great Improvement I beleeve it was As for Boggy Land also I have recovered severall Pieces next to plain Quagmires The meanes of reducing whereof shall be discoursed by themselves in the next Chapter So bad and boggy it was that Cattell could not Graze upon it out of danger And indeed it bore nothing but Cattayle's And by this course I recovered it to perfect soundness and made it worth betwixt thirty and forty shillings per Acre and so dare undertake the like where ever lying under the aforesaid Capacities Many more presidents of this nature are visible in many parts of this Nation Some as great Improvements as these Some lesse and yet very great And all done without any other Cost or Expence of charge in any other materialls than Poor mens labours Which to me is a second argument of Incouragement to promote all works of this nature under these Capacities One thing more I pray thee observe that though it be the common practice of most men in drayning their Land to make many shallow Trenches of about one foot deep aud lay their Mould on heapes that so they may spoil put little ground both which I must necessarily reprove as ill Husbandry For though I am all for Floating and Drayning which will necessarily occasion many Trenches yet I am an Enemy to this ordinary and usuall way of Trenching first for so many Trenches I conceive no need in these works nor upon any Land whatsoever but something more of them more seasonably in the second Piece of Improvement CHAP. VI. Sheweth the true Artificiall making of the Floating Trench and how to Levell Land and the suddainest way to Soard it USually I shall advise to make not above Two or Three materiall Trenches having first taken up thy Turf just under the Grass rootes both thin and square and as broad as can be taken up which I exceedingly prize for many uses and preserve The one called a Flowing of Floating Trench wherin I carry my water which usually after I have brought my water where I intend to work it I carry it in a Trench seldome above one foot deep or a foot and half many times not above eight or nine inches deep that so it being made Artificially viz so Level taper Narrower and Narrower as aforesaid the further it goes that it may so cast out the water that it may flow over the same for a furlongs length al at once which is the Excellency of it And then another drayning Trench running parallel with this or Two if the Land lye very flat and of such a depth as it may not onely receive all the water that Floweth over the Land clearly but that it may also drain away the cold Moysture and Bogginess that offends the Land by breeding either Rush or Bogg and of such a latitude or breadth from my floating Trench as thy water is of strength to Improve without Prejudicing of it by breeding Rush Flag or filth as aforesaid And as I make not many Trenches so I shall fil up all others that are not serviceable to these and so have done many a one that others have made to Drain their Land withall and with this One or Two Draines cast out in the lowest part of my Land layed dry more Land than a hundred of these common Trenches
plainly shewes that the Rush cannot grow the water being taken from the root for it is not the moystness upon the surface of the Land for then every rain should encrease the Rush but it is that which lyeth at the Root which drained away at bottom leaves it naked and barren of relief But suppose it should breed some few and the Mareblab too which is a sign thy Land begins to fâ—tten then take thy whole Stream or a good considerable stream and bring upon that place and overflow it as it afore directed in the Third and Fourth Chapter in December and Ianuary if it take them not away I will doe it for thee Floating Land will as certainly destroy the Rush the Flagg and Mareblab being well drayned again as work the least Improvement and no Land richer than Watered Meades Thou wilt say many men have made great Experiments this way and done great works and cast up all again Either the profits would not answer the charge or else it would hinder some other Lands advance another way or else could not bring their Land to their desired Improvement or else do so little as was not worth their labour I had hoped that I had laid down such undenyable grounds and experiences as would have removed all those Objections but sith they are made have patience and I will return a particular answer to each clause of the Objection 1. I say were all this true as possibly it may in some men and in some parts yet be not discouraged because of what I have said and the Experiences made are also obvious and iâ— the view of them thou shalt see more advantage made than is heâ—â— affirmed 2. And secondly to confirm thy Objection I say We had some Mountebancks abroad that have held out specious pretences of wonders as many Engineers have done in drawing Water or drayning Lead-Mines Tin or Cole-Mines and to that purpose have projected Engines with double treble and fourfold Motions conceiving and affirming every Work or Motion would multiply the ease in raising the water but not considering that certainly it must multiply the weight and burthen thereof and also put such an Impossibilitie unto Tackles Geares and Wheeles for holding that all would flie in sunder at the very first motion and continually one thing or other out of order and snap in sunder as fast as amended because of the great strength is required to move the same mistake me not I do not here reprove the use of Engine Work a good Engineer is a gallant and most usefull Instrument in a Common-wealth and they have principles most able to make the best Husbands and Improvers I onely warn you of Imposters Engines are most necessary and easeth all our burthens and all our pondrous massie substances are or may be lightned thereby and a good Engineer in these dayes hath taught us the usefulness of them little lesse necessary than our very wel-being but those few Instruments here held forth are plain and simple and my Projections nothing but Country Experiments that I fear the plainess of them will be no less offensive they being onely to give a moderate ease and speed to so toylsome and costly lobours 3. I answer thirdly that many have made some Experiments but those I conceive have neither been full Experiments in all particulars nor Regular according to the particular directions here given And so may as well spoil all as he that takes all or most of the Ingredients in a Medicine and applies it to the Disease prescribed but either he misseth in the Composition or else in the Application or else if he be right in all he may fail for want of patience to wait the issue but casts all away as worth nothing and claps in with another Receit and so is able to give no positive resolution what the effect thereof might be Therefore I say as before I have said Trace me along in all particulars and fail in none of them and if the issue fail challenge the Author as a deceiver 4. And that I may answer the full charge I say take my counsell for the severall Tooles proposed and I question not that in most ordinary Works the charges shall not be any proportion to the profit But say an Acre of Land should cost thee forty shillings the fitting and preparing of it as possibly some may it may lye so irregularly 't is then as possible in two or three yeares time the same may be made worth forty shillings per annum yea more many other Acres thou maist work to as good an advantage for twenty shiâ—lings some for ten shillings some for five shillings and some less I could give the particular Experiments for them all were it more necessary than brevity which I so much affect and resolve And for prejudicing other Lands as many strongly object it is almost as if one Hive of Bees should prosper more in one Garden than twenty would the contrary Experience constantly manifesteth and so I have done with this improvement And for improving so little as it is not worth the labour that is as frivolous also Many score thousands of Acres in England are under this Capacity and may be reduced to a twenty or thirty fold improvement yea in some parts of the Kingdom some hundreds of Acres together may be wonderfully advanced this way to a proportionable Advantage and with less charge proportionably than a few There is also much Boggy and Miry Land that may be reduced to advancement and such capacity as some may lye under may be improved twenty fold or more And as for coarse Fen and Marsh Lands upon both Fresh and Salt waters there have been such gallant notable Atchievements by many Accurate and Ingenious Spirits to whom the Nation oweth high Acknowledgements and whose works and experimenuts I do admire and honour to whom I desire to be a Pupil Yet notwithstanding their Discoveries and their works cut forth throughout the Nation and left to Idle Practitioners and Slothfull impatient Slubberers who have not onely done it by the halfes but stifled many a gallant plotted Opportunity of a far greater Advance than it hath produced And so possibly in many parts of the Nation there may be great Reparations of these Ruins and a certain Reducement to high Advantage As also some Addition possibly to their Modell or some increase to their Beginnings which is acknowledged far easier than the first Projection and shall be discoursed at the latter end of this Chapter The last way of Improvement of these sorts of Lands prejudiced by water is a way appliable to every other sort of Land whatever which lye under that Opportunity or Capacity which is cutting straight the water-courses of little Brooks and Streames that run many times in spirall lines and sometimes circularly as they would make the figure 8. and so lose as much more excellent Land as
need be nay in some places twice or thrice as much besides these Angles Triangles and almost Squares and Circles much endangering Cattell by goaring rushing and thrusting them in and also makes such stoppages and oppositions to the water that hinders the Current of it and occasioneth it to lye soaking on the Land that it either breedeth Rush Flag or Mareblab Also the aforesaid directions is a great means of laying sound much Land overcome by Bogginess the water lying so upon it that it drowneth or stifleth a great part of the fruitfulness of it yea suffocateth and choaketh others also bordering upon it no small prejudice to the Nation in generall and to many Town-ships and persons in particular A straight water-course cut a considerable depth in a thousand parts of this Nation would be more advantagious than we are aware of or I will task my self here to dispute further And though many persons are interessed therein and some will agree others will oppose one Creek lyeth on one side of the River in on◠Lords Manor another lyeth on the other side divers men own the same why may not one neighbour change with another when both are gainers If not why may they not be compelled for their own good and the Common-wealths advantage I dare say thousands of Acres of very rich Land may hereby be gained and possibly as many more much amended that are almost destroyed but a Law is wanting herein for present which I hope will be supplied if it may appear Advancement to the Publick for to Private Interests it is not possible to be the least prejudice when every man hath benefit and each man may also have an equall allowance if the least prejudiced But a word or two more and 〈◊〉 shall conclude this Chapter and it is a little to further this Improvement through a great destruction as some may say it is the removing or destroying of all such Mills and none else as drow◠and corrupt more Lands than themselves are worth to the Common-wealth and they are such as are kept up or dammed so high as that they boggifie all the Lands that lye under their Mill-head such Mills as are of little worth or are by constant great charges maintained I advise to be pulled down the advance of the Land when the water is let run his course and not impounded will be of far greater value many times But in case the Mills should be so necessary and profitable too and far more than the Lands they spoil I shall then advise that under thy Mill-dam so many yards wide from it as may prevent breaking through thou make a very deep Trench all along so far as thy lands are putrified and thereinto receive all the issuing spewing water and thereby stop or cut off the feeding of it upon thy meadow and carry it away into thy back-water or false course by as deep a Trench cut through the most low and convenient part of thy Meads But put case thou shouldst have no convenient fall on that side thy Mildam then thou must make some course or plant some trough under thy Mill-dam and so carry it under into some lower course that may preserve it from soaking thy meadows or pastures under it and by this meanes thou maiest in a good measure reduce thy Land to good soundness and probably wholly cure it and preserve thy Mill also As for that objection of hindering the grinding of corn it is very frivolous for First there are in many parts so many Mills as hinder one another and are scarce able to live one by another 2. There are or may be Wind-mills erected in most parts that may supply that want and are less chargable than Water-mills And for that some say the wind is uncertain I say it is so certain that I am confident few or none need want grinding if they can get corn for I my self live in a Country where are no other but Wind-mills and have scarce in a twelvemonth known any want of grinding But should it be so one may be supplied by Horse-mills one good horse will grind wheat easily and two good horses will grind any good dry corn and are not at that charge for repairs as both Wind-mills and Water-mills are 3. I say it is possible to devise a Mill with truth of workmanship and some other advantages that two men may grind any good corn whatsoever and that as much in an hour as any usuall Water-mill in the Country and to this work I shall commend one Mr. Dimock a very ingenious Gentleman and one who hath discovered so much to the World already as may give sufficient testimony of the truth of his abilities in this kind CHAP. IX The Ninth Chapter shall be a brief and plain discoverie of the most Feacible way of Fen-drayning or regaining drowned Lands or in bounding of the Sea from it AS to the Drayning or laying dry the Fenns those profitable works the Common-wealths glory let not Curs Snarl nor dogs bark there at the unparralleld advantages of the World give me leave because hitherto all men have Monopolised their inventions as they call them as possibly they might lawfully unto themselves and the mystery and no mans Experiences therein have at all been published to publique view which whether it do arise from a privacy of Spirit self advancement or rather from an ungratefull frame of men Governors trusted with the publique Weal of a Nation or great men well able to recompence publique discoveries whose shares will be greatest of the Advantage which last through Charity I am bound and from sad Experiences many Ingenious hearts have found I doe beleeve but no man as I ever yet saw or heard hath published any thing at all to any such purpose as to dismystery the same therefore by the good leave of thy patience I shall take boldness to pull off the vizor of those apprehensions I have found therein and discover the open face of that Experience I have made be it beautifull or deformed in pitty to move others to cover the deformities thereof or put more beauty thereon In the discourse whereof I shall candidly indeavour to draw it into as plain a Map or Platform as the roughness and confusedness of the work or my weaknesses will admit and to that end shall confine my self to these pareiculars 1. What drayning is and a discovery of Fen-Lands how they lie to those that know them not 2. To discover some of the Rubbs or hinderances that lie in the way of working it to the Common-Wealths ad-advantage 3. To hold out the Cure or best and speediest way for the Reducement or recovery thereof to perfect foundness 4. To discover the best and most profitablest way of Improvement of those recovered Lands to the best advantage of the Common-Wealth In all which I shall say but little nor can say half that is to be said herein but to each shall speak somewhat as near
light and I my self full satisfaction 1. Whether all waters whatsoever the more they increase in quantity the more in weight if so then 2. Whether if all waters biggen the further they run especially in floods whether then all water-works or cuts must not biggen and strengthen also if that a perfect securing from Floods be intended And if so then 3. Whether all Water-courses that are made for drains must not widen biggen and strengthen proportionable both to the Land-floods that come out of the upper Countries as also proportionable to the waters or downfalls that come from Heaven and fall upon the said Lands And so require answerable Receptacles if so then 4. Whether or what is the proportion or how may a man know the gage thereof and so how to make every course equall to the water it must carry 5. Where the greatest difficulty lies in drayning the Fens whether in drayning the Fens from their own naturall waters and moisture or in preserving them from the Land-floods that come from the high Lands If the great difficulty be to preserve them from the Land-floods of other Lands as to me seems probable then whether it would not be more really advantagious to a perfect draining to take off the Land-floods at or before their entrance into the Fens and so carry them along the Fen-side under the up-lands and not suffer them to come into the middle of the Fen as long as it may be kept off untill you come to strike with one straight course into the out-let of the Sea or River or within some few miles thereof And whether this would not be the likeliest certain meanes to prevent the just offencâ—â—he Commoner and Country seemed to take in the last undertaking who una voce cry out that the Undertakers secured their own by banks and preserved them from the Land-floods and drowned all the Commoners side as much as ever and that by every considerable Flood And if this be granted then I dare conclude the Fen will drain it self with a small course and with greater speed and more certainty as well as more substantially And so I shall onely move this further and so refrain 6. Whether if any of the aforesaid particulars be affirmed then must not of necessity all the Out-lets or Mouths of all the Master-work and Sluces and Water-gates be widened and made proportionable to your higher courses lest that the water receive a check thereby either to force your Sluces or give a recoil to the waters into the Fen again I mean proportionable as well in greatness of the fall as to the breâ—dth and depth of the water-course I shall onely now desire to know whether when the Master-drains are made substantially deep it will not be â—o most advantage to divide the lands into lesser divisions by small draines than to cast them out into greater proportions yet I shall not prescribe so small as some do but into the most convenientest divisions may be for the compleat draining And as to Sluces Water-gates Locks c. I shall say little because they are under the command of Rule and Truth of Workmanship and a good experienced Millwright or Engineer is well able to regulate them to as much Advantage for close shutting and suitable opening to the incomming of the Tide or out-going of the Floods as the variousness of opportunities will require which I forbear because they cannot easily be described without figures And as to the severall Tooles to be used in the working of these Water-courses they are common and most of them in common use upon the Fens except a good water-levell which I have at large described in the tenth Chapter which is most essentially necessary for the casting or laying out of all the Works therof and a Trenching Plough to cut out the first Works and the Turfing Spade all largely described in the next Chapter I shall onely speak a word or two to the Improvement of some particular parcels of Fen-lands which in themselves are drainable and without the least dependauce upon the general draining although I will not say but such Land would more easily be drained in the generall than it will be done of it self yet seriously pondering all things in one even ballance there may be little difference and that upon this account if it be done as a member of the General then it must contribute to the generall charge and share in the generall breaches or miscarriage and in all paaticulars stand and fall therewith Also then it is subject to the same hazard as the generall is of prejudice by reason of the differences that may arise betwixt the Owners Proprietors Commoners Undertakers or whosoever which may be very many and so great as may tend to the ruin of the whole which without dependance thereupon it will not be And I am confident some very considerable parcels of Lands lie so convenient and so fecible unto the Work that they may be done most easily and others lye more difficultly and will be done more chargeably All which I shall hold forth under these two descriptions 1. Are all Lands that lye somewhat higher of themselves and are never drowned unless it be by some extraordinary Inundation of themselves these are most easily recovered of themselves at a little more charge than any common Lands are inclosed and that by one good substantiall Dike well turfed or sodded as the Fen-men call it on the outside round about the same and well rammed and beaten together it need neither be very broad nor high the height and weight of the water offending will discover that unto you nor indeed cost any more than the charge of a good quick Dike which every good Husband bestowes upon a new division and I dare say there are many thousands of Acres of Lands in many parts of the Fens of this nature 2. The Second is the more difficult and yet very fecible also and that is certain Creeks or corners of Land â—â—unning into the up-lands and upon the out-skirs of the Fens and many out-borders that are onely anoyed with their own and the swellfng of the naturall Fen-waters and are cleer from any Land-floods or up-land waters running through them and have one or two sides firm and the securing of one or two sides more will secure the whole These are easily drainable without dependance upon the draining of the whole Fen and that by a more substantiall imbanking than the former to secure it self from the great waters of all other Fens and then there will onely rest to resolve how to drain it self to which I shall onely say that having well provided against the waters of bordering Fens find out the lowest part of all thy Lands and thither draw a good substantial Master-drain through all thy Lands and there plant a water-Engine which may either be wrought by the wind or by the strength of horse yea possibly by the strength of two or three men
which if the compass of thy Land be not great and thy water small may be but a very inconsiderable charge And thy Engines may also be divers as an Engine or Windmill may with a water-wheel planted in thy Water-course or Master-drain or very near unto it which water-wheel must be made to that height as may be sure to take out the bottom of the water and deliver it at the middle of the wheel which wheel may be contrived into such a form as that the Ladles as I may call them or Peals or Scoops as others call them will cast up and cast out the water to a considerable height as a man doth with a hand-scoop pail or kit cast water out of a ditch which Engine shall at large hereafter both be described and the form of it delineated or else by a good chain-pump or bucket-work both which may be made into a Wind-mil-Engine or else with an Engine made with a perpetual Screw all which for that height as is requirable to the draining of such a Work wil lay a good compass of Land dry in a few daies and if time prevent not shall most of them be described at large 3. But a Third is most difficult which I yet conceive also fecible and may be recovered also to a great advantage And that is such a parcel of Land that lieth also at a skirt or out-side of the Fen although it may have some Land-flood running through it or near it which Land-flood if it be possible either to divert it on the one hand or the other of the Land you desire to drain or else if it be be a small Floud within the compass and power of an Engine may also be drainable and by the aforesaid direction of inbanking the Land to secure the Land-flouds from comming on at at all which with a reasonable Bank and a fair open passage to convey the Land-flouds clenly away may prevent the fear therof And then a fair Master-drain down through the lowest ground or neer the middle of the Fen you desire to drain which must be made so deep as that it may substantially draw all cold corrupt water into it self I prescribe no depth because I cannot give to all sorts of Fen-lands no nor to any other by measure a suitable and necessary proportion so far from off the place where it is to be made and this drain to be continued to that place where you have most conveniencie to land your water and there planting one of the aforesaid Engines I shall leave every of them to each mans own affection I know they will every one do the Work and that a very inconsiderable charge to the profits and advantages to be received and reaped hereby I shall say no more in this case because I much more desire the general Work which will make all these particulars to come on the easier The draining of the whole Fens yet considering the rubs that lie in the way of the general and the great delaies and uncertainties therof I am perswaded to discover the capacities of particulars As for the particular Engines the Figures and Delineations of them they shall hereafter follow to be described to the very capacity of the Country Farmer as far as possibly may be And because I desire to speak to the understanding of the meanest you must a little bear with my tediousness till you come to the practice and then you 'l find plainness very usefull and all I have said little enough to discover the same Now to proceed to the Fourth generall Head of this discourse to set forth the best way of Improvement of the aforesaid Lands I shall say the less because through my whole discourse it is my main Scope and so shall confine my self onely to some of those particulars more peculiar to these Lands though being substantially drained they are capable of the impress of any Husbandry whatsoever I shall therfore divide the Fen-lands into three sorts First The sound dry Land seldom or never drowned The Second shall be your constant drowned Lands in times of great Flouds And the Third shall be your lowest Land of all that lieth constantly so wet and cold that it is turned into a very Moor or Bog 1. Your dry Lands I for the present account them the very best and most capable of raising the greatest present profit I shall therefore because it is fruitfull of it self to grass and will yeeld advance enough thereby and also because there will be enough for many years of the other two sorts remain to husbandrize and toss and tumble up and down perswade to lay it all for pasturage until your other Lands be perfectly recovered and improved but this may prove undoubtedly excellent Hemp-land Oad-land may be Mather-land and most excellent yea rather too good for Cole and Rape-seed because there will be other worser enough for that 2. To the second sort only drowned by up-land flouds so lie dry when the floud is gone I say if this be not leavened with coldness or steeped so w th constant corrupt water that it is turned into a moorishness but yet remaines perfect Land and clear Soard this very Land may prove your best Land in a little time and therefore I shall onely for the reducing hereof advise to a moderate plowing of it and for the reducing of it to perfect soundness advise to raise it every plowing dividing each ground into lands about three yards over or thereabout which will take two casts of seed and in five or six tilths will rise up to so convenient a height as will lay it sound and dry and increase your Land also yet however you must not endeavour the laying any Land any higher than your drains will be sure to draw your furrows But in case the Level of your water will not admit you to raise up your Lands to so good a height then you were best make your Lands somewhat lesser and then the fewer plowings will lay them round and sound but be carefull not to make your last furrow alwais in one place but in each plowing shift one furrow or more sometimes one way and somtimes another and this wil preserve the furrow from overmuch barrenness This Land may be suitable and very excellent for Cole-seed and coming to its perfect soundness for most of the aforesaid opportunities but exceeding rich for all sorts of Grain out of question onely I shall earnestly perswade not to plow too oft nor impoverish it too much at first for hereby most men undo their Lands I conceive it best not to plow any of these Lands no longer than it is brought into a perfect Tilth or one year after three years may do best though four years may do well and you will find a gallant sweet Turf succeed and soard thick suddenly and sweetly and your succeeding profits all things considered may reach your very benefit of corning to a very neer scantling I
have heard very many object that matchless prejudice by so tedious and thin Soarding and have affirmed they have tried it by experience and find plowing wofully destructive And if you should demand how many years they plowed it they must needs answer some 5 some 6 some 7 some 8 and some 10 and others more and if you again ask them how they laid it down they must say for the general they cast them down and left an open Ridge to grass and if you should again demand upon what stubbles or eadish did you lay down your Land for grass some say upon the Peas stubble or Barley and here there one upon the Oats which is better than either of the former but none say upon Wheat or Rie which I as highly commend and for the first yeares Soarding goes beyond them all they neither bestowed any soil upon it first nor so much as a few hay-seeds at laying down and yet they will tell you a story of I know not what experiences they have made when alas they never knew that an Experiment must hold in all its parts and relate to times seasons natures as well as fruit and crop and so bring an ill report upon the best husbandry and stifle their own greatest gain But of this no more because in other parts of the Book it is more largely discussed yet bear with me if repeated because this is the discovery of the husbanding of a new World as a man may call it I proceed to the Third sort which is your lowest land of all and lieth deep and long drowned that it is even turned to very Turf or Bog and very little useful onely two or three months in summer it is commonable but whether profitable or no I scarce know nor being a stranger both in those parts to those Lands will I be peremptorily confident in any thing as will not hold proportion and use with other Lands I shall therefore only question whether in commâ—ning upon these Lands they do not oft stiflle their cattell in the morishest places whether they rot them not or choke them not through many uncurable diseases by reason of the unwholsomness of their pasturage This I dare affirm I have seen many poor thin cattel which have brought Pharaohs lean ill favoured kine into my mind and such truly as I have not so familiarly seen upon heathy barren Commons ten Acres whereof is not worth one of these and yet thousands are prejudiced against the draining of them but to the Land it self being recovered and laid dry it will require more time to recover it self than the other better Lands require more cost and husbandry to bring it to Fertility and though all the preceding directions are or may be applyable here unto it in their propor Seasons yet some other work may be more naturall as a ground-work to other Husbandry and that chiefly upon your hassocky morish rough Land the which being left to grass I cannot conceive it worth in its present state not above 3 or 4s. per Acre and some under and yet that very same Land by paines and patience may recover to be very good Land immediately I shall therefore advise that this Land be turved or as some call it denshired that is all the hassocks cut up and the over-turf parted up and all laid upon little heaps till throughly dry and then burned to ashes and if it be all stringy rooty and very combustible matter then the thicker you pare it up the better for although I differ from many of the West-Country Husbands about this denshiring their thin turved Lands that are pure from roots twitch or moss conceiving that though it bring their Land into sudden Tillage and to yeeld out it's Spirit the first year it weakens the Land much there being no addition to it but a few bushels of ashes to an Acre in stead of good Turf or Soard that in a Summers working will be easily brought to Tillage and as I believe ads more by far to the fatting of the Land than those ashes do and I am sure when any one layeth down his lands to grass upon this Husbandry the Soard comes pale and wan and very lean and low and never riseth to a good Crop and whosoever seriously observes the same shal find that very issue yet to Lands of this nature I as highly extoll it and to all such foul Lands where is depth of soil enough and all so combustible as nothing else will work it unto Tillage In the midst of May or any time in the very beginning of Summer when the Land is thorough dry is best and the earliest also that you may have as much of the Summer as you can to the working of your other Tillages which being burned in a dry season proceed to plowing and ridging up your Lands and dividing them into such proportions as your drains will bear as is directed in the aforesaid last particular this will then be fit to take the impress of any seed much of this will bear Cole-seed or any grain which I leave to the discretion of the Country Experiences onely pray you study laying all sound and warm plow not too long and lay it down to grass either upon the Oat-stubble which will soard exceeding well the second year if not the first or upon wheat or Rie the Land harrowed and laid very smooth this will soard excedingly the first year as in other places of the Book I have at large discoursed And as your Land recovers soundness you will by your improving your own experiences have more Talents added to these you have more opportunities to raise 〈◊〉 advantages out of them Now to the conclusion of this Chapter I shall onely add a word or two of Sea-drowned Lands and it shall be very little because as to the improvements of them whatever hath been before spoken and applied to other Lands may be to these which being once recovered are very sound dry Land many of them and the rest may be reduced thereunto by good divisions and draines as in all other Marsh-Lands All the mystery of this is in the recovery of them which to discourse at large would be more tedious than profitable because as to the materials for imbanking or bounding the Sea whether Stone Chalk Wood or Earth little can be said because all must be referred to the conveniency and necessity of the place upon which they are requirable onely there must be great regard had to the force of the Sea that lies upon them and the strength and violence of the winds to which it lyeth most obnoxious for I am perswaded it is not so oft the Sea it self that makes the breach as the strength of the winds that forceth it over the banks neither can I prescribe the severall Locks or Water-gates necessary for letting out the Heavens water nor the bigness or strength of them that being proper to the place upon
they are and the sharper and curiously kept the better will they rid off work by far and the more easie and delightfull to the Workman and not fur and clog with Earth which makes the work go off very heavily The Third Piece of Improvement shews how to Enclose without offence and prevent Depopulation that is most common Attendant and Appurtenant to Enclosure and how to make Severall all Arable Common Field Lands and also all Common Heaths Moores Forrests Wasts to every particular Interests and the Common-wealths great Advantage CHAP. XI The Eleventh Chapter Treateth of Improving Land by Pasture Reproves Depopulation proves excellent advantage by Enclosure and taketh away the usuall Scandals layd upon it THis Piece of Improvement will be the better carryed on if we could but prevent two great Rocks men are apt to dash upon and keep the Medium betwixt both The one is so Extreme for Pasturing and Grazing as he will destroy Tillage and raising of Corn so he may convert all to Sheep Wooll and Cattell though the contrary be of incomparable more advantage Credit and Glory The other all for Tillage and Plowing that he will toyl all his dayes himself and Family for nothing in and upon his common arable Field Land up early and down late drudge and moyl and wear out himself and Family rather than he will cast how he may Improve his Lands by Impasturing and Enclosing of it whereby he may raise more profit in Sheep Wools Cattell and far more Corn also if he please upon every Acre For the discovering a little these self deceivers to themselves I shall speak a word or two more large to each Extreme The first Extreme is partly through so deep an Affectation of Tillage and plowing in Common although it be to his perpetuall slavery and drudgery all his dayes he will not leave it and especially through a prejudice he hath taken against Enclosure through some mens depopulation and oppression and destruction of Tillage that he will not approve hereof upon any Tearmes but oppose with all the might and main he can what saith he Enclose depopulate destroy the poor no our fathers lived well upon their land without Enclosure kept good hospitality many servants and bred up many children and abhominated the thoughts thereof and so will wee prevent it if we can wee will toyl and moyl all our dayes and breed up our children to keep sheep horse or beast kick up their heeles upon a bank flit our horses and breed them up to take our inheritance of Thirty Forty or Fifty pounds by the year with which few can scarce bring both ends together by the yeares end as dayly experience shewes they not once considering the fruit of Idleness not the great Improvement of this honest equall Enclosure nor their childrens ruin for want of learning Trade or good breeding the least whereof is better or may be better to them than all their lands Witness thousands in England that prefer their children better with a little good breediug with little portion than they can or usually do with all their inheritance The second extreme is as like the former as can be and is so prejudiciall to the Common-Wealth and destructive to good husbandry and it ariseth out of base private humour of sloth and self-will and want of a wise Spirit of discerning in Improvements and because he seeth some men have abused 〈◊〉 Pasture-Land by over plowing and took out the Spirit and life thereof that it will not come to it self of many yeares which is an ill piece of providence indeed therefore he will not plow any old Pasture Land at all upon any tearmes or for any time no though his Land be so decayed and impoverished that that Land which would have maintained much cattell will not now maintain so much by one third part or a quartern as it did after the first through soarding and by reason either of the wet and cold year or the overpowring of the moss or Anthills or some other trash it puts not that proof into Cattell nor scarce half as it did at the first Soarding nay though it calls loud for plowing and will be much bettered and the Rent doubled yet he will not have it plowed come what will What saith he destroy my old Pasture my sheep-walkes and beggar my Land all the world shall not perswade him to that you may as soon perswade him not to eat good wholesome food because some men overcharged their stom acks by excesse herein because here and there an indiscreet man did wrong his Land by excessive plowing he will not use it at all not moderately though he may Mend or better it thereby No saith he I can raise a constant profit by my Wool and lamb my fat beef and mutton at an easie quiet way unto my self and family without much vexing or turmoyling which is a gallant way of living and I shall exceedingly advise and commend it too until the Land degenerate and calls out for plowing or the Common-wealth calls out for corning and will yeeld far better advance therby he takes more content in a Sheep-heard and his dogg and in his own will and ease than in greater advantage and as the other Extreme will hinder all Improvements he can by way of Enclosure under pretence of overthrowing Tillage though a man may till as much get far more Corn in Pasture than in Common if he will so will this out o◠as vain and senseless pretences hinder all Corning in pasture lest he should prejudice his Land for grazing although he may moderate corning and better his Land to grazing also so have I erected a Sea-mark upon both these Rocks that all men may take heed of dashing themselves thereon the Ingenious I am sure will never come near them But for satisfaction to the first extreme maintayned by that generation of strange men that oppose Enclosure yet see every day the Rents of those Lands Improved some doubled some more some less and the Land certainly advanced by it one Acre made worth three or four and after a while will bear more Corn without soyl for three or four year than divers Acres as it was before in Common that onely say Enclosure may as easily be made without depopulation as with it and to the other Extreme I am not ashamed maintain as a reproof to this Extreme that many ten thousand Acres of Land in England may yeeld a double profit divers yeares by plowing and afterwards yeeld as much rent as ever before and possibly much more Nay I 'll say observe my Directions punctually and I 'll make good the old Rent the very first year after Plowing and begin to enter upon it as soon as the Crop is reaped off and begin my year with Winter too which is accounted the worst advantage to the Tenant and so for Seven Ten or Twenty upon many sorts of Lands in England of the aforesaid Value But to stop the
him to be Capable of Hospitality of which he is to be a Lover far better able to give than to receive and to Administer to others than to be administred unto by way of Charity And as for the great depopulation in the Nation that hath devoured poor Tenant overthrow Corning and good Husbandry and in some parts Minister and all and yet persist by keeping their Land from Tillage when it wants it when Country the Landlords profit the Markets the Labourer Poor and Land it self and all calls for it is no less than grand oppression As also for other places where no maintainance is assigned for the Minister but the people starve for want of bread and where those great Impropriations are that devour all the Profits and have all to a short-coat Vicaridge How these things should be mended is infinitely beyond my Sphere how Ministers should be raised maintenance and all Interest preserved I know not only I shall pray the wise God to direct our highest Counsells in regulating these distractions for it is far beyond my shallow capacity how to advise And for the Free-holder Farmer or Tenant I question not the Free-holders offence for he having his proportion I know it will be doubled and more to his advantage And for the Tenant let him also share in some Advancement either let him injoy it at an easie rate that look whatsoever Bargain he hath in common by the year he may have a better upon the Enclosure or else let him take a Lease for Lives or Yeares that as he enjoyes the worst upon the first Inclosure so he may have the best also having a good Tâ—rm of time therein and then I hope he will not wrangle neither for I am sure he need neither Moyl nor Cark as he did before but manage his business with more ease sweet content and advance of profit And for the Land-Lord or Lord I shall not much bespeak his favour or Approbation for he will beleeve me without Demonstration that there will be a visible and considerable advance fall upon him onely crave his patience that he 'll not be offended that I seem and but seem so to do to project to give away his Right as to the Poor which in Common is their own whether by Right Custome for I speak of no other in this place but such as have right of Common and so they may require so much by Law but to encourage them and to remove offence and scandall I advise it And when all these particulars concerned in their severall Rights are satisfied we shall do well and yet the great Block and Prejudice is yet to be removed which is the destruction of Corn and Tillage which I promised to clear which followes here First I indeavour before Enclosure that either by ingagements so firm and surely made by all parties concerned in it as they may fall under Law to be recovered Or else by a particular State Law enacted to this end so to ingage all men in this new Inclosure to allot or cast out one third part or thereabout at least of all their Lands constantly for Tillage or what more at any time they please One third part for Meadow And another third part for Pasture or feeding Land which third part for Tillage if my conceptions fail not First with the help of all that Soyl that the Hay of the other third part will raise in maintaining all the Cattell in Winter that they Pastured in summer upon the other third part which I conceive may be as many more and also Secondly by that advantage there will be sometime Plowing on Pasture and resting Another whereby fresh Land and Reitey for some years will bear more Corn without Manure than it did before with it and indeed also after some yeares of resting may stand in need of Plowing and possibly may advance the Land by it as I am sure they will all our Wood-land coarser Lands whatsoever that are either subject to the Moss or Rush or Ant-hills whatever it will do to better Thirdly well knowing that without question one Acre of well Manured and Husbandryed Land will yeeld more fruit than two or three otherwise A principle undeniable Fourthly consider the vast advantage there will be by Husbandring a little well I say it is clear some one Acre manured plowed and husâ—andred in season and unto that height of Richness the Land and seed sowed doth require may and doth usually bear as much Corn as two or three ill husbandred as aforesaid Then ballance the Business and weigh but the advantage One Acre beareth the fruit of three the two Acres are preserved to graze the seed and all other charges of two Acres is preserved to help the Markets The Husbandry and Plowing and sowing of two Acres is also saved Oh consider it and neither be such Enemies to the State nor of your selves and Common-wealth so great Abusers of Ingenuity and Good Husbandry so great Traducers When men have their Lands enclosed and at their own command I fear not but most men will covet to Husbandry every Acre so well as it may yeeld forth the utmost fruit it is possibly able to produce having the rest at their own Command also to imploy to another Advantage Which done half the Land in England thus managed would yeeld more than all that now is under Tillage This Poor Piece by the by observed and practised would make good the Improvement promised consider it well and be convinced or reply Fifthly if you consider that all your Common Fields were never under Tillage neither As great part Sâ—ades and Hade wayes and a great part Meadow and much and many Balkes between each Land and many High wayes and some commune of Pastures and Leayes left for keeping Beasts or Sheep upon all which will contain one third part as I conceive if not near half in some places not under Tillage but wast Lands Certainly I conclude there may be as much Corn go by Ingenuity upon this lesser quantity of Ground and much more being inclosed than upon it all in Common And that there cannot be any destruction of Tillage upon all theâ—e Wasts and Grazed parts which ever lay to Grass and no Tillage was upon them so that I must clearly conceive were one third pâ—rt upon all Enclosure allotted out or covenanted to be kept constantly in Tillage though I advise not to keep the same third part alway in Tillage but sometimes one part and sometimes another all making up one just third part would raise as much Corn as all did in Common And lastly Enclosure cannot destroy Tillage the Staff of the Country because it ever yeelds most profit nor will nor need all be converted to Pasturage Cain and Abel were born and planted together and ordained to live together and if there were any danger of one destroying the other Tillage is likelyer to destroy Pasturage because Cain slew Abel
but without a fear the Ploughman and the Sheepheard may do best together in a Common-wealth CHAP. XIII Sheweth the Excellency of Tillage and the great Profit thereof and the great Advance is made out of severall Enclosed Countries beyond Champain as also the great Improvement of Heaths Moores and Forrests which will dismiss those needless feares of overthrowing Tillage NOw Tillage yeeldeth the greatest profit to Land-Lord or Occupier study especially the Good Husband to convert thy Land to the best Profit And that is held and maintained by all men to be by Tillage else why do men give double Rents to Till and Plow above what they do to Graze and if thou art not yet satisfied consider but the Wood-Lands who before Enclosure were wont to be releeved by the Fieldon with Corn of all sorts And now are grown as gallant Corn Countries as be in England as the Western parts of Warwickshire and the Northern parts of Worcestershire Staffordshire Shropshire Darbyshire Yorkshire and all the Countries thereabouts and all the Chalk Countries both South and West-ward Also consider the Chiltern Countries and you shall find that were it al Inclosed men would Plow little or no whit less than now they do because nothing else nor no way else would yeeld the like advance Consider Hartfordshirex Esse Kent Surry Sussex Barkshire Hampshire Wiltshire Somersetshire and all the rest All which not onely raise Corn for themselves but to supply that great City that Spends as much as all those Countreyes and far more And yet no parts of England set at greater Rates or makes greater Advantages by Grazing and yet the greatest part thereof upon Tillage and Corning And what Country not almost though Inclosed yeelds the greatest profit by the Abundance of Corn produced But if all that I have said be not enough I have enough I am sure before I have done As for your Heathes Moores and Forrest Lands I shall onely speak thus much That vast and Incredulous are their Capacities of Improvement in generall referring the particular wayes of Improvement of every sort and differing natured Land as they fall in the fourth or sixt Piece of Improvement to avoid prolixity because the very same Ingredients Compositions and Directions are suitably and naturally appliable to these Lands as to those to which they are prescribed Therefore I onely say that all Interests in these Commons or Rights of Common Pasture upon any of these Lands may without Prejudice to any particular Interest be advantaged and much Improvement made to the Publique I speak not to inright the Usurpers of right wrongfully maintained or Oppressors of any other mens Rights I desire that Right might onely run in its proper Chanell First in generall by the same Method of Enclosing held forth in this third generall Piece of Improvement touching Common Field-Lands if thereto before Enclosure you do but add the Method or Drought of first casting out your Lands and plotting them into such Plots and Formes so that where there is or may be a Capacity of bringing thy Land under any good Stream or Land-flood be sure to cast it for Meadowing having drawn one Master Level floating course throughout they whole Plot of Enclosure which may also serve as thy first division and to carry thy water along also to flow thy Meadowing thou shalt make all under it fit that thou mayst not lose that Opportunity now at first which after divisions made cannot be had of so great an Improvement at so small a Rate now at thy first contrivance thou mayst cast it under and then cast out all thy Lauds accorto the most suitableness of them all to such Improvements they lye under and then to the Conveniencies of each mans Right and Interest and the greatest Advancement upon these Inclosures will be two The first giving all Ingenuous men a Capacity to Plow and Till what they please thereof which will raise a double or treble Advantage as to Grazing and a Tenfold greater Advance as to Common of Pasture which to some is worth nothing at all because of their remoteness to others but little because of some great Oppressor nearely and neatly seated upon the Commons that drives others from it and to none what it may be as by right when he may use all his Parts Purse and Experiences of Husbandry at his own pleasure by improving it And it is and never was otherwise seen that men would ever joyn together in one body to use their utmost to improve any of these Lands to the best Advantage for though Common of Pasture is mens own Inheritance and every man not knowing his Lot or Portion how rarely will they ever joyn or agree therein although they are all perswaded of a probable great Advancement yet one sayes I shall not have so great an Advantage by it as my neighbour and another he believes it will be good for present but it will not last and an another sayes he hath no reason to bear so great a proportion of Charge though he have as much Land yet he 's not capable of so great an Improvement and another saith I could be well content to help on any publique work if others would but for me to bestow cost and improve my Land or commons for others that will bestow none to eat and bite up my cost much discourageth him and indeed there is some Reason for his backwardness and a thousand Excuses and Cavils there must be which though a wise man may easily answer yet never convince their Judgements for it hath ever been so since their dayes and their Fore-fathers were as wise as they and they cannot be satisfied let it alone and weeâ—l take the present profit it yeelds and there is an end of their Improvement And here I 'll give you a President which though it might as to the nature of it have come in more seasonably in the discourse about common Field Land yet here it is very naturall also both as to the end I bring it for and for the discovering a Capacity of a vast Improvement both upon it self and upon all other Lands of that nature There are many hundred if not thousands of Acres of Lands near Dunstable in a Valley under Puddle or Chalk-Hills just under the bottome of the Hills an eminent place known well to most which I believe runs both wayes far but on both sides the Rode-way to Coventry and VVestchester the Land lyeth with a little Brook or stream running through it All which Lands if you observe them above half the year ly full of water if not under water and I believe it is worth about five shillings an Acre I am sure abundance of it is not worth three shillings and some not worth two shillings an Acre which if my Judgement fail not may easily be drained and laid so sound and wholsome which were but that done as it should be or but according to the second Piece of
Improvement and the directions given in the seventh Chapter treating of draining I dare uphold one Acre would be as good as divers now are in many parts of it but then should you also by the benefit of that Brook and all these gallant rich Land floods that issue from the Hills on one hand and from the Vale especially on the other hand take the advantage and benefit of them also and according to the first Piece Improve it by Floating which may very Feazibly be done according to the direction of the fourth fifth and sixth Chapter whereby it may be Improved to its utmost I verily believe it would not onely make good the utmost extent of my Improvement promised but will afford Hay sufficient to supply all those Barrâ—n parts and that as good again for the nature of it if not thrice so good as now it is I Instance this place the rather because it is so obvious to every one and so well known to most and this offer of Improvement was once tendred to them who could not agree therein but made many of the Objections aforesaid although it was offered them to be done at anoâ—hers cost and charge and they have run no Hazzard but to have come unto so great an Improvement paying the cost and charges if the design had taken after they had seen it wrought unto their hands but there are a thousand and ten thousand Acres up and down the Nation some yeelds more and others less hopes of vast Advancement and all great enough if men would put them upon tryall and great and vast quantities of Land in many Forrests Common Fields and other Heaths Wasts Moores and other Commons subject to the greatest Improvements at little charge which will never be done till men know their own And were every mans part proportioned out to himself and layd severall it would so quicken and incline his spirits that he would be greedy in searching out all opportunities of Improvement whatsoever the Land is capable of As by Lime and Marl Muck Soyl Marl Lime Earth Chalk and Mud c. With many other wayes all which men will infinitely more pursue when they know their own than while it lyes at random And a Monarch of one Acre will advance more profit of it than he that hath his share in an hundred Acres in common which will more naturally fall into the next Piece and there shall be particularly handled whereby great store of Corn of all sorts where now not one Grain is Tilled may be gained which raiseth Straw Stover and Fodder abundantly for raising Soyl Dung or Manure As old and the onely infallible and undeniable meanes to advance any Land whatsoever I shall digress a little because all men talk of Husbandry and good Husbandry too and especially of much excellent Husbandry near and about Londoâ— where Soyl is so plentyfull that half of it is scarce used though so much needed and so unspeakably advantagious and yet so few practise Husbandry to purpose though under such great opportunities but few practise to purpose else what meanes all those Barren Lands though not Common Lands lying within some two miles other three four five or six of the great City where all men are said to be the most gallant Husbands of the Nation to lye unimproved all Heath or Ling or Broom not worth three four or five shillings an Acre surely were there either Soyl to be had at London for Mony as indeed there is enough to be had without nay in many parts men may have Mony to carry it away else were there a River to Barge it up and down men would Improve it to great worth Many hundred if not thousand Acres in Fssex Kent and Surry are neglected certainly Land is worth Money and Money enough too if I be not mistaken about London And then by these meanes when the same shall be laid down to Graze observing but the particular Directions aforesaid it shall feed and fat where before it kept but store Cattell alive much more might herein be said but I 'll say no more for if the Presidenting these experiences will not satisfie and abash the Oppressor I am sure I shall shame my self by my Prolixity and therefore I 'll sope the Black-more no more untill he manifest his offence at what I have said by way of return in the same kind but if he delight more in Rime than Reason or Experiences Take Mr. Tusser speaking in his Husbandry of the great Advantages betwixt Enclosure and the Champion Countries and betwixt Slothfulness and Ingenuity and I will give it in his own Phrase which I conceive may please thee better and he speakes very good Reason also by his Rimas By Master TVSSER 106. Pag. Chap. 52. A comparison between Champion-Countrey and Inclosure THe Country Inclosed Ipraise The other delighteth not me For nothing the Wealth it doth raise To such as inferiour be How both of them partly I know Here somewhat I mind to show Their Swineheard that keepeth the Hog Their Neatherd with Curr and with Horn Their Sheepheard with Whistle and Dog Be fence to the Meadowes and Corn. Their Horse being ty'd on a Balk Is ready with Thief for to walk Where all things in common doe rest Corn-field with the Pasture and Mead Though common ye do as the rest Yet what doth it stand you in stead Their Commons as Commoners use For otherwise shalt thou not chuse What Lair much beteter then there Or cheaper thereon to do well What Drudgery more any where Lesse good therefore where can ye tell What gotten by Summer is see In Winter is eaten up clean Example by Liecestershire What Soyl can be better than that For any thing heart can desire And yet they want ye see what Mast Covert Close Pasture and Wood And other things needfall is good All those do Inclosure bring Experience teacheth no less I speak not to boast of the thing But onely a truth to expresse Example if doubt you do make Of Suffolk and Essex go take More plenty of Mutton and Beef Corn Butter and Cheese of the best More Wealth any where to be briefe More people more handsome and prest Where find yee Goe search any Cost Than there where Inclosure is most More work for the labouring-man As well in the Town as the Field Or therefore devise if you can More profit what Country doth yeeld More seldom where see yee the Poor Go begging from door to door In Norfolk behold the despair Of Tillage too much to be born By Drovers from Fair unto Fair And other destroying the Corn By Custome and Covetous Pates By Gaps and opening Gates What speak I of Commoners by With drawing all after a Line So noying the Corn as it lye With Cattell with Coneys and Swine When thou hast bestowed the cost Look half of the same to be lost The flocks of the Lord of the Soyl Doe yearly the Winter Corn wrong The same in
a manner do spoyl With feeding so low and so long And therefore that Champain Field Doth seldom good Winter Corn yeeld By Cambridge a Town I do know Where many good husbands do dwel Whose losses by Lossels doth shew More here than is needfull to tell Determine at Court which they shall Performed is nothing at all The Champain robbeth at night And proleth and filcheth by day Himself and his Beasts out of sight Both spoyleth and maketh away Not onely thy Grass but thy Corn Both after and ye'er it be shorn Pease bolt with thy Pease he will have His houshold to feed and his Hog Now stealeth he now will he crave And now will he cozen and cog In Bridewell a number be stript Less worthy than Thief to be whipt Lord if you do take them what stirrs How hold they together like Burs For Commons these Commoners cry Inclosing they may not abide Yet some be not able to buy A Cow with a Calf by her side Nor lay not to live by their work But Theevishly loyter and lurk The Lord of the town is too Blame For these and for many faults moe For that he doth know of the same Yet lets them unpunished goe Such Lords ill Example do give Where Varlets and Drabs so may live What foot-paths are made and how broad Annoyance too much to be born VVith Horse and with Cattell what road Is made through every mans Corn VVhere Champains ruleth the rost There daily disorder is most There Sheep when they drive to wash How careless their Sheep they do guide The Farmer they leave in the lash With losses on every side Though any mans Corn they doe bite They will not allow him a mite VVhat Hunting and Hawking is there Corn looking for Sickle at hand Acts lawless to do without fear How yearly together they band More harm to another will do Than they would be done so unto More profit is quieter found Where Pastures in severall be Of one silly Acre of ground Than Champion maketh of there Again what a joy is it known When men may be bold with their own The tone is commended for grain Yet bread made of Beanes they do eat The tother for one loaf hath twain Of Meslin of Rye and of Wheat The Champion liveth full bare When Wood-land full merry do fare Tone giveth his Corn in a Dearth To Horse Sheep and Hogs e'ry day The other give Cattell warm barth And feeds them with straw and with Hay Corn spent of the tone so in vain The tother doth sell to his gain Tone barefoot and ragged doth go And ready in Winter to starve When tother yee see doth not so But have what is needfull to serve Tone paine in a Cottage doth take When tother trim Bowers doth make Tone layeth for Turf and for Sedge And hath his wonderfull suit When other in every hedge Hath plenty of Fuell and Fruit. Evill twenty times worser than these Inclosure quickly would ease In Wood-land the Poor men that have Scarce fully two Acres of Land More merrily live and do save Than tother with twenty in hand Yet pay they as much for the two As tother for twenty must do The Labourer comming from thence In Wood-land to work any where I warrant you goeth not hence To work any more again there If this same be true as it is Why gather they nothing of this The Poor at Inclosure do grudge Because of abuses that fall Lest some man should have too much And some again nothing at all If order might therein be found What were to the severall ground Consider well many Solid demonstrations of truth in these particulars he speakes very much Reason and as much Truth his observations are very good nor is it the single opinion of Mr Tusser and my self but of all that ever I yet saw or read of these sudjects of either good husbandry or the best way of Improvements of Lands but ever advised perswaded to this as ever you would study your own the Common-wealth but especially the good of your Posterity indeavour prosecute such an Enclosure that is not nor can appear to be any particular soules hindrance T is true I have met with one or two small Pieces as M. Spriggs and another whose name I remember not that write against depopulating Inclosure with whom I freely joyn and approve such as former oppressive times by the will and power of some cruell Lord either through his greatness or purchased favour a Court or in the Common Courts of England by his purse power could do any thing inclose depopulate destroy ruine all Tillage and convert all to pasture withont any other Improvement at all lay Levell many honest families to the ground dispeople a whole parish and send many soules a gooding a cursed horrible oppression which for my part I would it were Fellony by the Law which I think really is no better which hath brought men to conceive that because men did depopulate by Enclosure therefore it is now impossible to enclose without Depopulation but against Enclosure it self meerly to convert it from a generall promiscuous Common age to a division or distribution of every ones share and Interest therin to his own particular possession use and occupation to manage husbandry and Improve as he shall like best both for manner time and charge I never yet did see or read any to avouch the same but should be very willing to meet with such an Antagonist for whom I am prepared and will if God please to give opportunity in mild and loving way endeavour to convince him of his rash mistake but should any man take offence at Enclosure as of it self as I verily believe none doth yet at such a way or Method of Enclosure as is here held forth and discovered that provides as much for the raising and increase of Corn and all Grain as for supply of Pasture and Meadow and provides for all Interests their proportionable Advantages I hope very Doggs themselves will not move a Tongue And as for old writers so for new and late ones they all with one consent encourage to Enclosure Improvements some affirming that the great benefit of the Sheep their Wool that Staple Commodity of England doth Imploy more people by far on every Acre than by Corning which may possibly be so too but I am sure that in a way of Improvement which I hold forth it must needs more advantage the Common-Wealth than lying wast in common and unimproved And if thou peruse Mr. Hartlips book printed two year since wherein he handles it very demonstratively well worth thy reading will confirm the same And if thou wilt peruse learned Fuller in his holy state you shall see the Excellent advantages and Improvements may be made to all by an Enclosure without Depopulation in the sâ—â—â—nd book 13. Chapt. page 91. â— most Excellently handled and cleared Studie therfore the management of all thy estate to the
best publique Advantage Husbandry all thy Lands to the best greatest benefit of the Common-Wealth for in this way of Improvement thou caâ—st not possibly intending the publique good but necessarily the greatest good must follow to Poor thy self and family Order therfore thy common Arable Lands as they also may raise and produce their most plenty to all Concernments and all Wasts Forrests and Heathes that they may produce their great advantage which being so old and restie will yeeld forth Corn in great abundance and after Pasture to double profit Bee not peevish nor let not passion nor old customed corrupted Will prevail against these Advantages for he that Improves not all his Land to this end the raysing plentie and relieving the miserable answereth not the ends wherefore thy self and all thy Lands were given as before I hinted I have no more to say to thee but to intreat thee to remember that passage of the Wise Man viz The thoughts of the diligent bring abundance And if thou wilt be yet unsatisfied be so stil. The fourth Piece of Improvement shews how to Plow and Corn old Pasture Land so as not to Impoverish it and double the Improvement of it for a Time and afterward to better it for ever in a way of grazing and will be as a medium to allay the second Extreme and will discover that Corn shall ever be the predominant profitable staple Commodity in the Nation and sheweth many particular wayes of Improvement of other sorts of Lands CHAP. XIV THere is a second Extreme also which men wedded to their self profit hugg in their very bosome which is so much to their hearts content that they never look what may make most profit to the Publique or good of the Common-wealth themselves or Posterity He is seated in way of Feeding and Grazing with a constant Stock of Breeding and let his Land be fit for one or fit for another use he matters it not he hath received a Prejudice against Plowing partly because of the Toyl and Charge thereof and partly because as aforesaid some men have Plowed their Land so long as they have impoverished it much and some men so long as it is possible it may be many yeares before it Soard Compleatly and therefore let it be Dry or moyst Sound or Rotten Rushey or Mossey Fenny or run over with a Flag Grass or Ant-hills Mossure or wild Time let it keep more or less hee 'l not alter tell him Sir it will yeeld abundance of gallant Corn to supply the whole Country raise great Summes of Money to your Purse and afterward if you yet Plow Moderately it may keep as many Cattell nay more yet nothing takes with him he will have no Enclosure Plowed by no meanes yet seriously weigh these ensuing particulars and then use thy own will and pleasure But to make good my promise herein I must first remise that my Design is mainly upon a second sort of coarser Land betwixt twenty shillings an Acre and ten shillings or a noble out of all which will come a great Advancement to no prejudice at all is a member of one of the fix Pieces of greatest Advancement promised Although the best sort of Land of all will yeeld the greatest profit yet not without some seeming little Prejudice to it and also this will best continue and hold his beauty and strength and Improve upon Grazing rather than lose which the worser sort will not And of this best sort of Lands with the Improvement to be made thereon very Considerable I shall also speak under the sixt and last Piece of all And shall now set forth how the Plowing of all such Lands according to the Design projected which shall be a supply or filling up and running over of the measure of plenty of Corn in case Inclosure should decrease it which I am confident upon the consideration of the aforesaid Reasons thou canst not Imagine and so remove that Extreme also In which Projection I shall tell thee that if thou wilt follow the Rules prescribed thou shalt double the prizes of thy Lands for the present time of Plowing and after lay it down better for Grazing than thou tookest it to plow onely consider that of this second sort there be three natures First sad and moyst strong Clay and cold Second Mixed with divers Earths Third Warm Sandy or Gravelly The first natured Land advanceth it self most be Tillage yet raiseth Corn in abundance also but the two other latter natured Lands advanceth not so much in it self as in that wonderfull increase of Corn it yeeldeth to the Common-Wealth I verily beleeve that Lands of these latter natures are as fruitfull and kind for Corn especially if they be resty and for four yeares may produce as much increase to the Strike or Market as that Land that is as Rich again or twice as Rich for as to the Corning Land it may possibly sometime be too good as alwaies too bad I had far rather make choice of a middle sound warm Land than of the richest and fattest that is for this will yeeld it self and heart more to the Corn than the other and yet this also may be bettered with wisdom used in the Plowing for Grazing also First therefore consider the nature of this first sort of Land and the way of Husbandring it to inable it to produce the promised Improvement And so I begin with that which is of a pure Clay or of a little mixed nature either with Sand or Gravell and yet is of a cold temper and so is neither so wholsome for Cattels lodging nor so fruitfull for their Pasturing Which sort of Land is many times over-run with Ant-hills which are best destroyed this way being opened the Soard taken up and the Coar taken out and scattered before the Plough will make all the Land Plow the better and also lye better and the Mould wil help a little all the parts of the Land they are spread upon And Rushes and Moss in abundance may many times so over-run the Land which are so thick and noysome that they not onely hinder the Earths naturall fruitfulness but the Rushes are so thick and high in many Pastures that the Sheep many times make them for their Refuge to preserve themselves from the heat that oft-times they are sheltered so long by them untill they be lost by the Manes Maggots or Vermine A great prejudice to the Grazier or Breeder All which is certainly occasioned by the Moystness and Coldness of the Lands which will no way more certainly and Advantagiously be removed but by Plowing these Lands which course although by many men it be thought an Impoverishing of the Land yet I absolutely deny the same and affirm both from mine own Experience and the Practise of those that have made tryall thereof that it shall most wonderfully advance the same for present and future Over-Plowing indeed weakens Land Extremes on either hand are
I the managing it whilst under Tillage I would make good the same upon good Security But as I said before use your own liberty he that Plows not such Land at all that yeelds its utmost strength and fruit in Grazing which admits of no Corruption or Degeneration doth wel Because the Nation will afford other Land enough that stands in more need of this Husbandry to supply the Country Corn And also because many men hold it a great Disparagement to Plow up such gallant Pasture from whom I do very little or nothing dissent in Judgement yet he that if by Plowing can Advance the Publique and himself also I dare not say but he doth better yet neither much amiss Every man herein may please his own affection where the Common-wealth is not eminently prejudiced But for other wayes of Improvement of the Richest sort of Land I know little more worth Divulging for either the Cost and Charge expended will not produce an answerable present Advantage or else the continuance and certainty of future hopes may prove doubtfull Which uncertainties I affect not onely take this remembrance with thee that if thy Pasture be very Vast and Large Lesser Divisions will set the dearer and better and every mans money for Conveniency when greater are bargains for few men and those for great ones also that will make their own Advantage yet use moderation herein also A large Pasture is comely and a little Pingle Inconvenient Extremes are neither for Credit nor Profit but for Destruction A Pasture about one hundred or sixscore Acres or a hundred and fifty Acres is very commendable where they lye remote and at good distance from great Market-Towns or where Pasturing is very plentifull but if either pasture-Pasture-Land be scarce or border upon Common Fields or Heaths or Forrests or if they lye near or adjoynining to any good Market or great City lesser divisions wil farre out-vy with greater in their price advantage the people lying under such necessities of Pasturage some to help to relieve their Common and others to relieve the necessities of their own neighbouring Families But in thy Divisions be sure to make them alwaies in the lowest parts of thy Lands that so thy Ditches may serve in stead of Draines or Conveyances of Water or taking away the Coldness that offends thy Land every mans own Experience will patronize this Position But secondly when any of these Rich Lands shall Degenerate into Mossiness Rushes Coldness or Over-grow with Weeds Nettles Hemlocks Sow-Thistles c then thy Land wil need good Husbandry and wil admit of Improvement for Hemlocks Nettles Docks Chick-weeds and other common Weeds these are as much occasioned with Fatness and too much Richness as from any other cause And when from this cause no cure like Plowing for that brings profit with the Cure and advance in the very Reducement there is much Land of this Fatness Some there is in divess parts of this Nation as about Hay-Stacks or Sheep-Pens or places of Shade or in the Warmest parts of many Pastures which Sheep and Cattell chuse alway for their Lieare and very much about the heads of Conney-Berries All which according to former Direction in Plowing old Resty Land will Reduce this to Moderation in over much Rankness And especially if it be Plowed somewhat oftner than the other sorts of Lands it will bear near as many more Crops without prejudice and no other means whatsover will so Surely Feacibly and Profitably work this Effect in my Experience viz. To destroy the Weeds and reduce it to perfect Grazing And as your Land degenerates to Mossiness Rushes and Coldness none will deny the wonderfull certain change and alteration thereof by Plowing if they should I conceive I have sufficiently cleared it where I have discoursed of the second sort of Land at large in the thirteenth fourteenth and fifteenth Chapters and answered severall Objections made against the same yet one or two more remains to be Objected Bear with me I say the more herein as Coveting to beguile men of such Prejudice as possesseth most and so deeply rooted as will ask hot water to Mattock up Some say they have fouâ—d the contrary their Land not Soarding of many years after and when it hath come to Soard it hath been neither so Rich Thick nor Fruitfull therefore Prejudiced by Plowing All which I Eccho with thee that possibly it may be so and yet this may not reach too nor in the least weaken my Propositions which give direction onely to three or four Crops at most unless in case of Weeds and Nettles and too much Fatness I never advise to Plow thy Land so long to bring it to this I abominate such Husbandry neither do I absolutely perswade to the Plowing of all Lands without Exception well knowing that in some parts of this Nation there are some Lands so Binding so Tough a Sodering Clay Cold that it will neither Soard so thick nor quick as others will which sort of Land if Rich and Sweet will less Advance by Plowing than any other but to this sort of Land as it doth degenerate and decay use it as a Medicine and use it as according to former Rules and lay down thy Land according to former Limitations question not though it Soard not so soon as other Lands Mixed Light more Loosened yet it shal both Soard so Timely so Richly as it shall counter-profit all thy prejudice And for other Lands either Gravelly Light Warm and Sandy or else Mixed and Compounded I dare affirm some Land the first year may be full as good as it was before Plowing I have known a Winter Stubble after the Crop was Inned of some Pastures worth as much that Winter half year as it usually was worth any Winter upon the old Soard yet hath not bin Pastured the whole half year neither nay some have been worth as much as the said Lands have bin worth almost the whole year The Eadish hath bin so fruitfull and my self have had the like Profits and Advantages and have had a Wheat Stubble of my own being the third Crop that will make good what I have Affirmed and the very first year of Grazing full as good if not better than it was upon the old Turf before Plowing They that cannot manage this Objection further yet confess and say 't is true for two or three of the first years it may possibly hold fruitfull but it shall fall after seven eight or ten or more years after that it shall be worse than ever To this I can say little more than what I have said before unless you can produce me some Experiment wherein my directions have been observed and your Prejudice succeeded otherwise you say nothing which Experiment when you have found I shall not question but to discover your mistake either you are mistaken in the nature of the Land or else
there would not be one foot of ground more lost but a double or treble Advantage raised upon it in few yeares and ever after with no other Husbandry continued but ever bring in double profit for the charge bestowed As in the cutting plashing scouring of the Hedges which payes his cost bestowed and sometimes double and treble and if it be a Hedge curiously preserved and cut just in his ripest season before it begin to die i' th' bottom and have in it either good store of great Wood or Fruit-Trees planted among the profits may arisâ— to much more than is here spoken of CHAP. XVII Wherein I proceed to a second sort of Land somewhat Inferiour to the former wherein is discoursed the destruction of the Rush Flag and Mare-blab altering the Coldness of Nature and the preventing the standing Winters Water and destroying Ant and Mole-hills c. All which are most incident to this second sort of Land THis which I call a second sort is our midling Land I delight in plainess and avoyd all Language darkning the plainest sense or whatsoever may occasion mysteriousness or confusion in the reading or practice so that this middle sort of Lands as aforesaid is all such Lands that are betwixt the value of twenty shillings per Acre and six shiliings eight pence per Acre which sort of Lands as they lye under a capacity of the greatest Improvement I have handled them at large in the foregoing Discourse especially under the four first Pieces of Improvement But as they lye under a Capacity of a moderate and less Improvement fall here to be discoursed and although I call it a moderate Improvement yet being well Husbandred according to the subsequent directions may produce a double increase and some far more and some less but in all a considerable advantage enough to encourage to the prosecution And possibly some of these Lands may be of the richest and first sort naturally but by some Improvidence or ill Husbandry being degenerate are faln under this second and that where the Rush either hard or soft prevaileth or else where the Land lyeth so flat cold and moyst that the Flag or Marâ—-blab thriveth I shall here onely apply one remedy for the removall of them all to avoid Tediousness which is most naturall thereto and cannot fail being punctually observed and that is a way all men use already though to little purpose which is to indeavour Drayning of the same as you shall see in most mens Lands both Pasture and Common â—ull of Trenches as they can hold to their great cost and loss of abundance of good Land devoured in the Trenches Heaps and banks they make and yet all is of little use the Rush as fruitfull and the Land as cold as formerly in comparison Therefore I shall advise far less Trenching and yet produce more soundness I say then as I have often said seek out the lowest part of thy Land and there make either a large Trench or good Ditch or be it but the old one well scoured up if there be one to such a Depth as may carry away that water or Corruption that feeds the Rush or Flag from every other upper Trench thou shalt see cause to make and so ascend to any part of thy Land where these offences are carrying with thee one Master Trench to receive all thy less Draines along with thee and there make a Drain yea all thy Draines and Trenches so deep for I prescribe no certain depth as to that Cold spewing water that lyeth at the bottom of the Rush or Flag which alway either lyeth in a Vein of Sand and Gravell mixed or Gravell or Clay and stones mixed as aforesaid and thence will issue a little water especially making thy Trench half a foot or one Foot deeper into which will soak the Rushes food which being laid Dry and Drayned away cannot grow but needs dye and wither It is impossible without going to the bottome to do any good Our own experience shews it and so the depth may be two Spades graâ—t or more however to the bottom thou must go and then one Trench shall do as much good as twenty alwaies curiously observing that thy Trenches run in the lowest part of thy Ground and through the Coldest and most quealiest parts of thy Lands and for the manner of making the same and further Direction therin I shall refer thee back unto the second Piece the seventh Chapter where I have spoken something to most of the aforesaid Passages But if thy Land lyes upon a Flat or upon a Levell and have many great wide Balks of which there wil be no end of Trenching or Drayning I must then assure thee it is to little purpose yet art not left remediless for this insuing direction will not fail and will bring profit with it to pay for curing also which is a moderate Plowing Ridging all thy Balks raising and Landing all thy Flats gaining them as high as possibly thou canst Plow all and leave none and do this three yeares together and observe such former Directions as are contained in the thirteenth fourteenth and fifteenth Chapters in the third Piece of Improvement And by the blessing of God expect the issue promised It will lay Land sound and dry more warm and healthfull than formerly destroy the Rush and many other Annoyances beyond Expectation I have been forced to be more large to speak twice to one thing because of the suitableness thereof unto these Lands but especially because I cannot speak enough to make some to understand it nor others to set upon the Practise and more especially because the Reader may miss the reading of it in the former part unless he take the paines as few do deliberately to read the whole Therefore if thou wilt forgive this fault I le mend the next As for the Mole-hils so great an Enemy to the Husbandman and Grazier there is so much Experience made for their Destruction that almost every Ingenuous man is grown a Moal-catcher in many parts and that is a certain way yet in many parts men are Slothful that because all their Neighbours wil not kil them therfore they wil not so they suffer their Land one third part to be turned up There is a Law to compell men to Ring their Swine to prevent their Rooting it were more advantage to the CoÌ„mon-Weal a severe Law were made to Compell all men to keep the Moal from Rooting for he destroyes abundance of Grass he covers with the Mould and Corn he throws up by the Roots which utterly perisheth Spoyls the Mâ—wers work and Tools and raiseth Balks in Meads and Pastures besides the work he makes the Husbandman to spread some of them the Cost whereof were it but bestowed in Moal-killing would prevent the aforesaid losses And although I can make no new Addition to the Moales Destruction there being so many Artists with the Moalâ—staff Tines and
or of Commons near Hedges is very good both of it self and compâ—unded with other Soyl Manure Mud or Straw And very much account made thereof in some Countries nay more than this of Manure that is made of Horse or Cow for some sorts of Land and some sorts of Corn which I conceive is for Lands very Flinty Stony and Gravelly or a little mixed with Câ—aâ— amongst then as also for Wheat and Bâ—rley it is very natuâ—â—ll and is of constant use and great esteem in Hartfordshirâ— Essâ—x Sussex and divers other Countries thereabout and also to great Advantage being put in Execution in most of the Counties in this Nation if ingenuity was of as good esteem among us all as is a base Out-landish fashion for no sooner can that be brought into any part of the Country but it will be dispersed presently into all the parts therof but such as these that are Advantage to all and vastly profitable to the Practitioner Common-wealth are slighted and little practised Earth of a saltish nature is fruitfull especially all such Earth as lyes dry covered with Hovells or Houses of which you make Salt-Peter is rich for Land and so is old flores under any buildings There are many other gallant Soyles or Manure as your Pidgeons dung a load whereof is more worth than twenty shillings in many parts your Hens and Poultry Dung that live of Corn is very excellent these being of a very hot or warm and brackish nature are a very Excellent Soyl for a cold moist-natured Land Two Load hereof will very richly Manure an Acre so is all Dung the more it is raised from Corn or richer matter the richer it self is usually by far as where Horses are highly Corned the richer is the dung than those onely kept with Hay There is another sort of Soyl and that is Swines dung by most men accounted the worst of all nay not worth preserving out of an old received Tradition taken up by most men upon what ground I know not and so generally disliked of almost every one and therfore they will not Experiment it and much an end no use at all is made thereof possibly it came from Scotland who knew they but the excellency thereof they would love the flesh the better for the dungs sake Which to me is very irrationall that an Englâ—sh man who loves Swines flesh so well that more Account and use is made of all the parts of him rather than of the Beef or Sheep yea his very blood and guts are highly prised yet the Soyl of him so much undervalued This Dung is very rich for Corn or Grass or any Land yea of such Accompt to many Ingenuous Husband that they prefer it above any ordinary Manure whatsoever therefore they make their Hogs yards most compleat with an high pale paved well with Pibble or Gravell in the botom where they set their Troughs partly in and some part without the Pale into which they put their meat but the most neatest Husbands indeed Plant their Trough without their Pale or Hog-yard all along by the side of it and for every Hog they have a hole cut the just Proportion of his head Neck and cannot get in his feet to soyl his meat and out thence he eates his meat forth of the Trough very cleanly and sweet they keep the Trough also very clean they have their house for lodging by it self with dry straw alwayes for them to lye in and their cornish Muskings they cast into the yard for that purpose and all Garbidge and all leaves out of Gardens and all Muskings forth of their Barns and of their Courts and Yards and great store of straw or weeds and Fearn or any thing for the Swine to root amongst to make all the Dung they can into the yard for raysing dung and here they keep their Swine the year round never suffering them to go one day abroad and here your dayry Husbands or Huswives will feed them as fat as Pease or Beanes and are of opinion that they feed better and Eatter and with less meat than when they are abroad with all their Grass they spoil Which I did more than three quarters believe but now know it to be true of my own knowledge Some Hog-yards will yeeld you forty fifty some sixty some eighty Load and some more of Excellent Manure of ten or twelve Swine which they value every Load worth about two shillings six pence a Load in their very yards prize it above any other This is practised much about Kings norton both in the Counties of Worcester and Warwick and in many other parts as in Cheshire Staffordshire Darbyshire also I beleeve An Excellent Piece of husbandry I speak Experimentally hereof having made great Advantage my self hereby and do far more prize it than suffering Swine to run and course abroad knowing that rest quiet and sleep with drink and lesser meat will sooner feed any creature than more meat with liberty to run and course about into harms and wash off what they get with their meat with their vexing and running up and down and do advise as thou valewest thy own advantage some good dairies will make the soyl of their Hogyard produce them twenty or thirty pounds worth of profit in a year As for Rags of all sorts there is good vertue in them they are carried far and laid upon the Lands and have in them a warming Improving temper one good Load will go as far as half a dozen or more of the best Cow Dung Coarse Wooll Nippings and Tarry Pitchmarks a little whereof will do an Acre of Land there is great vertue in them I beleeve one Load herof will exceedingly well Manure half an Acre Marrow-bones or Fish-bones Horn or shavings of Horn or Broaths made of Beef Meat or Fish or any other thing whatsoever that hath any Liquidness Oyliness or Fatness have a wonderfull vertue in them let all be precious to thee and preserved for every little adds too and helps in the Common stock and he that wil not be faithful in a little will not be faithfull in a greater quantity as is alway seen by constant â—xperience As for Sheep-Dung Cow-dung and Horse-Dung such old ordinary Soyl I intend to say little in regard the Common use thereof which hath extracted the vertue and excellency to the Common-wealths great advantage onely thus much I shall say by way of advise and reproof from my own Experience 1. By way of advic Prize them according to their worth The Sheeps â—ung is best and a little hereof is of more strength and heart than the others are but whether it arise from the rich and pure nature of the Dung or from the warmth of the Sheeps bodies I know not but I conceive from both because it warmes the Land makes it comfortable And therfore in regard of the worth and excellency of Sheeps
so much by the Acre of many more years growth as this at the Eleventh year And for the effecting of this Design thou must take in two or three more particulars one is a strict Observation of the Season in Planting And then secondly your Demeanure towards it after Planted First The Seasons are as soon as the Leafe is faln the earlier the better fail not to be well prepared of Materials to begin with November and so thou mayst continue three months compleat untill the end of Ianuary and possibly some part of February but it is somewhat hazardous and may exceedingly fail thy Expectation And for the Moons Increasing or Declining matter it not at all nor any Season Wet or Dry Frost or Snow so thy Labourers can but work and be sure that what Sets be gathered one day may be sâ—t the next if possibly or next after And shouldst thou be occasioned by any hindrance to keep thy sets longer Unset be thou sure thou get their Roots into the ground well covered with good Mould untilâ— thou canst set them and be not drawn away to the contrary by any Workmans perswasion whatsoever for though the lying out of Mould of Unset do not kill them yet will it so backen them that thou mayst lose a full half years growth in them Secondly Thy Ground thus planted thou must be careful in the Weeding of it for I know no greater cause of this so great Advance than this The keeping of the Ground clean from Weeds and as mellow and open as possibly which will cause the Roots to shoot exceedingly and the Plant to grow abundantly thou must for the first second year prize it and dress it almost as a Garden And therefore be sure thou preserve it from any Beast Horse or Sheep biting it in the least measure should Cattell break in they would destroy one yeares growth in a moment As for Boggy Land much of it that is perfectly Drained to the bottom that is little worth will nourish a Plantation of Wood to good Advantage especially your Poplar and Willow and Alder your Ash will grow well also But therein you must observe to make your Dikes and Draines so deep that you may lay it compleatly dry you must goe under all your Bog to the cold spewing-Spring near a foot below that then what you plant upon the Bogs or Lands you may expect a wonderfull issue 'T is very common in four or five years that the Willow rises to gallant Hurdle-wood in five or six yeares to Abundance of Fire-wood and small Pole for Hops and other Uses One Acre of new Planted Willow upon some Land not worth two shillings an Acre may in Seven years be worth near about five pound in some parts an Acre and in some parts of this Nation more And I verily beleeve were all the bog-Bog-Lands in England thus planted and Husbandred well after these Directions might raise Woood enough to maintain a great part of this Nation in Firing and for other sorts of Wood the well Ordering Nourishing it although in Lands so bad would produce a wonderfull profit far more than I will speak of And I suppose he is no ill Husband that can raise a bog to a double advance considering some of them are worse than nothing But when they are so exceeding Coarse and barren you cannot expect such Fruitfulness ordvance as from that Land that is of a fatter or better nature For certain all plants and Woods will do much better on better Land than on coarser and in case thou shouldst bestow Soyl or Manure on thy Land before thou Plant it it would be both Labour and Cost exceeding well bestowed and conduce much to the nourishing of a young Plantation Now shall follow a piece or Device how to thicken your Springs or Coppices where they grow thin or are decayed Which fully observed may doubly improve the same such a way is here projected as is little used in any Woods where I ever yet came and as unlikely also to any thing I have yet spoken unto which is no more but this at every Fall where thy Wood groweth thin take a goood straight Pole or sampler growing of Ash or Willow at the usuall growth of the Wood and Plash it down to the Ground about four or five Inches above the top of the Ground not cutting it wholly off and cut off the head of it and put the over end of the Pole after the head cut off a little into the Ground which thou mayst do by bending it in the midst like a Bow and so thrust it in and so fasten it down once or twice from the middle of it and upwards close to the Ground with a Hook or two and out thence where any branch would put forth standing will put forth lying and more and more grow up to Plants and Poles as the other Spring doth and so you may though it be uncapable of Sets or Planting with the Root lay over all your Vacant places and thicken your Woods where ever they are wanting And let me beg of thee thy credence here it is most certain I speak out of my own ExperieÌ„ce one of the gallantest Woods I know in England it is constantly used at every fall in some place or other of it the Wood is eighteen fals every fall eighteen years growth their very Faggots made at length of the Wood besides all their Pole-woods all their brush being faggoted into the Faggot were this year sold for one pound three shillings four pence a hundred forty Faggots make a Load it is worth about twenty five pounds an Acre every fall Study warmth all that possibly thou canst for any Plants are helped much in mounting aloft thereby therfore as I conceive they prosper worse upon your cold Clay which nourisheth the Tree little and hath no quickness nor life to quicken the growth therof but by toughness and coldness of the Earth the Sap is shut in and cannot get in to spread so frankly as it should and so instead of thriving of the Tree the moss prospereth more fruitfully than the Tree Your Elm Plants may be gotten of young sprouts growing forth of the Roots of the old Elm many thousands which being slipped and set will grow very fruitfully Your Sicamore is a very quick growing and thriving Wood especially if it be planted upon some warm sound and rich Land they will thrive wonderfully and rise to gallane shade excellent to make Walks Shaddow-bowers useful for in ward building where better is wanting for firing where wood grows scarce As for Sets of this nature if you go to any place where Sicamors grow and there in the beginning of the Spring you shall sind the Seeds chitted up and down as thick as possible which gather up and set them presently and you shall have your increase at large being planted curiously from any the least prejudice of
make it most usefull for Seed and service I have heard much talk of three Crops and truly if it be not reserved forseed I am confident in a fruitfull year it will well bear it nay may be more for thongh I love not fauning neither affect I smothering the Thuth nor to eclipse any new discovery I therefore say that if the Seed be good and the Land either good naturall or artificially made good by Husbandry it may very well bear three Crops two to cut and one to graze and the first Crop may by mid May be ready to cut for this I say and most will find it though they otherwise speak high that this grass will be best alway to be cut green and before the stalk begin to grow too big and begin to dye and wither unless it be for seed Thefrore as experience will teach it will be excellent good to cut it green and young and give it cattle or horse in the house for if you cut it to keep it will go so near together as it wil doe but little service dry yet being cut young it will be very good and sweet and either feed or give milk abundantly and then after the first cut let it grow for seed and herein you must be carfull that it grow till it be full ripe for it will not be very apt to shed And if it grow to seed I cannot conceive of what use those stalks which are so hard and dry can be of unless it be for Firing in a dear Country so that the seed must be the advance of that Crop onely and so it may well enough and you may have a good after pasture and may grase it untill Ianuary and then prepreserve it but if you would know when your Seed is ripe observe these two particulars First observe the husk and when the Seed first appears in it then about one month after it may be ripe But Secondly try the seed after it begins to turn the colour and the stalk begins to dye and turn brown it begins to ripen and being turned to a yellowish colour in a dry time mow it and preserve it till it be perfectly dry any manner of way and then about the middest of March thrash it and cleanse it from the straw as much as you can and then foulter and beat the husk again being exceeding well dryed in the Sun after the first thrashing and then get out what seed you can and after try what a Mill will do at the rest as aforesaid more at large but I will give way to a better Discovery I need not prescribe a time either in Iuly or August as best to cut for seed because some years and lands will ripen it sooner than other will therefore have respect to thy seed and straw according to former directions but when thou art got into good seed thou maist graze it upon thy land and then be sure not to let it grow too rank and high for if the stalk grow big cattell will balk it and stain it more and it will not eat up so kindly at first nor grase so even afterward but exceeding much Milk it will yeeld and feed very well but to affirm as some have done and do confidently unto this day that it will grow upon the barrennest ground as is on Windsor Forrest I dare not I have known that there it hath failed and I am confident must without exceeding great cost and husbandry yet that very Land well Manured and Tilled Dunged Limed Marled or Chalked or otherwise made fat and warm will bring forth good Glover and other rich commodities as they do in Flaunders upon so coarse Lands bestow good cost and that will do The nature of the Land is good bnt the spirit of it is too low to raise it of it self And this is all is held forth in the discourse of the Brabant Husbandry exceeding barren Lands but well Dunged and Tilled and then Clavered not that it is the barren Land but the good and costly Husbandry onely the oldness of the Land and restiness thereof yeelds more spirit to the Grain or Claver by far than the Tillable Land constantly plowed and being of the same fatness and barrenness and no better yet I verily affirm that Tillable Land well husbanded and layd down with Claver will do very well also The quantity of seed to sow an Acre as I conceive will be a Gallon or 9 or 10 pound though some are of opinion less will serve turn And so I descend to my last particular which is 5 To set forth the Lands most suitable for Claver with the annuall Profit that comes thereby Therefore as above I say your old Land be it coarse or rich as it is or hath been disused from Tillage long is best for Corn so also is it the best and certain Land to Claver and when you have corned your Land as much as you intend then to alter it to Claver is the properest season 1 As to the nature of the Land as I conceive your dry warm Land naturally good betwixt ten and twenty shillings an acre or your poorer dry Land betwixt one shilling to ten shillings an acre well manured or soyled and brought into perfect Tillage and to speak properly and plainest any Land that will bear good Corn wil bear good Claver 2 Your earthy well mixed Land of a middle temper will do with good Husbandry as aforesaid as well as the former And lastly your naturall cold Land well Husbandryed laid up very dry and warm and brought into good Tillage every Land laid high as the nature and coldness of the Land requires and every furlong drained and the furrows cleansed up by the Plough at last wil bring almost any Lands into a very good condition for Claver and the better husbandried the better for this use also This I shall lay down for a generall Rule that whatever Land is neither to rank or fat for any sort of Corne whatsoever is not too good to Claver and you shall alway find it best Husbandry and best pofit upon your best Land unless as aforesaid you recover the barren Lands up to a good and rich condition which is also the far better Husbandry than to lie pelting and moyling upon poor mean Land unfatned by some soyls or other therefore I advise every man to plow up no more than he can exceeding well overcome by his purse and husbandry and let the rest lie till he have brought up his other and then as he hath raised one part take up another and lay down that to grase either with Clover or otherwise And let him that flatters himself to raise goed Clover upon barren heathy Land otherwise than as aforesaid pull down his Plumes after two or thee years experience unless he devise a new way of Husbandry And as to the annuall Profit that may accrew thereby I shall little differ from
the Flaunders Husbandry but shall affirm that one acre after the Corn is cut the very next year if it be well Husbandryed and kind thick Claver may be worth twenty Marks or twelve pound and so downward as it degenerates weaker less worth In Brabant they speak of keeping four Cowes Winter and Summer some cut and laid up for fodder others cut and eaten green but I have credibly heard of some in England that upon about one Acre have kept four Coach horses and more al Summer long but if it keep but two Cowes it is advantage enough upon such Lands as never kept one But I conceive best for us untill we be come into a stock of Seed to mow the first Crop in the midst or end of May and lay that up for hay although it will go very near together yet if it grow not too strong it will be exceeding good and rich and feed any thing and reserve the next for Seed And if we can bring it up to perfect seed and it will but yeeld four bushels upon an acre it will amount to more than I speak of by far every bushel being wooth three or four pound a bushel and then the after math or eadish that year may put up three midling Runts upon an acre and feed them up all which layd together will make up an Improvement sufficient and yet this propety it hath also that after the three or four first years of Clovering it will so frame the earth that it will be very fit to Corn agaen which will be a very great advantage First to corn your Land which usuall yeelds a far better profit than grasing and sometimes a double profit and sometimes more near a treble profit and then to Clover it again which will afford a treble fouâ—fold yea 10 or 12 fold Advance if not more And so if you consider one Acre of land with the Claver and Husbandry thereof may stand you the first year in twenty five shilling the three other years not above ten shillings the Land being worth no more which may produce you yearly easily five six or eight pound per annum per Acre nay some will affirm ten or twelve pound or more then most of my Improvements promised are made good as in my Frontspiece is he 'd forth under this first Piece of Improvement CHAP. XXVII Speaks of the usage of St. Foyne and La-lucern I Proceed to the discovering of the use and advantage of St. Foyne a French Grass of which I mnst use plain dealing and not put my Reader upon improbable experiment as is my chiefest aym And as in some part of my former discourse I promised to bring down to our practice some Out-landish Experiments which were hinted at and discovered unto Mr. Hartlib by Letter to be a great deficiencie to us in our Improvements the non-practice thereof so I must and will hold forth no more than I can make proof of to the face of the world Therefore my self having not made a full Experiment thereof onely I have sowed of it this year shall give the relation of the manner of the Husbandry thereof and the fruit you may rationally expect and the Lands upon which it is to be sowen and so leave it and you to your own experience and Gods blessing I shall not trouble you with the description of it as an Herbalist because as in this so in no other is it my design to search out the nature of any Herb or Plant in it self but as it is most profitable or usefull for my main design The Improvement of Land St. Eoyn is a French Grass much sowed there upon their barren dry hasky Lands and sometimes in our Gardens hath a kind of it been much sowed called the French Honysuckel it is of one excellent property yeeldeth abundance of Milk and upon that account may be very advantagious to many parts of the Nation it groweth best as it is said upon the barrennest lands hilly and mountainous which I am induced to beleeve upon this score because it is rendred to be worth but nine or ten shillings an Acre which some would not think worth experimenting but if so and it will grow upon our worst land I am sure there is thousand thousands of Acres in England not worth one shilling an Acre and if that being sowen upon such land it will with one sowing advance it to that worth and so continue for divers years it is very well worth our imitation and practice it will raise betwixt a load and a half and two load of an Acre Besides it is rendred to have another excellent quality which is not to barrennize Land but to better or fatten it and after seven years growing it so roots large and many somwhat like Licorish that the Plowing up of them is a very good soyl and much fattens the Land for Corn it is excellent for soarding Land the first year a great advantage It hath been sowed in divers parts of England as in Cobham Park in Kent c. where it thrived very well upon chalkie dry banks The seed is first to be had out of France where it is sold for about three pence or a groat a pound but here it was sold very dear at nine pence ten pence or twelve pence a pound this yrar It is most like a Parsnip seed only a little browner in colour and somewhat rounder and fuller made like an Oyster it is very light and so many pounds go to a strike and it must be sowed far more in quantity than you doe the Claver seed because it is so great a seed for ever the smaller the seed the further it goeth I conceive for every pound of Claver you sow you had need sow two of this if not more but I leave it to your own experience you will easily find a fitting proportion upon the first tryall but the thicker the closer it grows and stocks the ground the better and destroyes other seed or weeds The manner of sowing it may be with Oats or Barly so much as grows up with the Barley may be cut with it and then preserved or else if it be very fruitfull it may be moed in the latter end of the year and then preserve it for mowing for six or seven years after for by that time it will have lost the spirit of it and be overcome by our English grasses and then be fitter to plow for Corn again But if men will be at charge the best way commended to me is this to prepare your Lands and make them fine as when you sow barley and then plow in these seeds as the great Gardeners do their Pease yet not altogether at so great a distance but yet let them make their ranges near a foot distance one betwixt another and the grass will flourish like Pease especially if they draw the plow throngh them once or twice that summer to destroy all the weeds but whereas
it cannot sting or draw into the ground so is drawn at the end of that false beam either with Horse or Oxen with Cock or Clevies as you have occasion or do desire but because this plough cannot be fully discovered by the most familiar discourse but will require the Figure also I will here give ye it as near to the life as possibles That which is the Standard fastned in the lower beam and runs through the over to gage the plough is made near two foot high and in the over end is made two holes to put the Horse-raine throngh to come from the Horse head to the very plough handles to guide him to and fro and under them divers removing holes and one or two in the beam equall to those in the Standard and an Iron pin put through them both This plough neatly made and very small hath been drawn with one horse and held by one man and plowed one Acre a day at sowing time in a moyst season and as Collonell Blunt hath related to me he hath with six good horses six men and six ploughs plowed six Acres a day at sowing rime in light well wrought Land The Figure expect with his fellows CHAP. XXX Shall discover some generall faults that may be incident to all sorts of Ploughs and give you the description of the Dutch and Norfolk Ploughs I Shal now proceed in this place though not so Methodically as I should to discover the usuall faults of many ploughs of all sorts and most ploughs in England are tainted with some of them 1 When they are made too big both of Wood and Iron that is bigger than the work requires they are the heavier to be drawn carry the more weight with them and require the more strength to draw them A husbandman must have his severall ploughs if he will carry on his work comfortably 2 Fault may be in the roughness and ill compassendness of the Share as aforesaid and when a plough is made too thick in the very breast of this fault are many ploughs in some parts and though it help well in the sudden cast of the furrow and wil carry a great furrow with it yet it goes very sore of this fault are the plough in Holland in Lincolnshire which otherwise have a gallant cast of the Shield board as I ever saw which I have before at large described 3 Is the shortness of the handles by which a man cannot command his plough with that ease and truth as he might do if his handle had length and compass A short upwright handle exceedingly dislike a man having very little power to command the same when the plough is not truly held it never goes easie 4 The straitness of the Breast-board neither made nor drawn compass and croswinding for the cast of the furrow a very great fault to the Ploughs ease 5 The placing the Wrest even with the Breast-board and as long as it or near as long nay I have in some parts seen it longer It is as great a hindrance to the easie and true going of the plough as any I know and yet by very few discerned or reproved I say had I time I would give reasons enough to clear it that a good broad Wrest and five six or seven inches shorter than the Shield-board is best which being at the further end set even or a little under the breast-board and at the neather end where it is pinned either to land handle or otherwise it be set two inches narrower and under the Shield-board is both easie to the holder and to the cattle and a main advantage to the turn and strike of the furrow and especially the plough being made no broader behind than a just furrow breadth 6 And lastly the dulness of Irons and either not clouting at all or else uneven rough clouting and plating your ploughs is a considerable hindrance both to the ease and lasting of â—ste plough And these or any of them all are generalls and will hold let them be upon what plough they will or upon what Lands they wil or in what seasons soever and are greathindrances of the good of plough and Plowing And therefore what fashioned ploughs soever you make take heed of these Rocks and for what seasons soever you make them avoyd them all and then if thou wilt follow thine own Country fashion doe and God bless thee with it I say not that these are all the faults for there are many more particularly treated of also aforegoing but these are such as may be prevented in any common sort of ploughs whatever most of them In al sorts wil put such an advantage to the ploughs ease as with observing the foregoing directions also will be woth thy imitation In Norfolk and Suffolk are very good ploughs in many parts of the Country upon the sandy parts two horses one man will plow at ordinary seasons and almost any land of that sandy nature two Acres of a day many times one man with two horses hath plowed three Acres in one day They seldom go with above two horses and may with one horse and one man and if they plow any strong land that they are forced to put in three or four they set them double and have but one man to plough and drive Their ploughs are very small and light and little compassed all which are great advantages but the greatest is the Land which is a pure sand for the most part and very easie working land yet though this be the easiest yet we have in many hundred places of this Nation very sandy light land very earthy mouldy land a light mixed chissely land and abundance of Errable Land in very good Tilth where men usually go to plow with four horses or four oxen a horse and seldom less but many times more which might as wel if not better be done with two unless at seed time now and then two oxen and a horse or three horses and two men which is a wonderfull charge to the poor Husbandman the extremity of which charge were it but removed would be sufficient of it self to make him thrive and prosper I shall conclude this discourse with a relation I had froÌ„ a Norfolk Gentlman of very good worth and credit in that Country Upon the Marsh-lands bordering upon the Sea-coast a Gentleman set an hundred Acres to a man to plow he covenanted with him to find him horse and ploughs irons and meat for the horses and he was to find onely all mans labour and he allowed him eight horses for the work and for the mans labour that he was onely to find to plow this land the man covenanted to plow this Marsh-land which is a mixed earth we have many thousand Acres as easie plowing in England almost in al Countris for 5d. an Acre performed it he plowed his 8 acres a day he found but 3 men to the work he went to plow
will bear which is the mortess for the foot and therein you may place a square good strong piece of tough Ash or rather of iron into which you may have your iron Axeltree with its square end sitted into three or four severall holes of it by which means you may set your plough at a working gage and there continue it and alter it as you see cause which plough thus marshalled you may well plow upon ordinary errable land that is in good tillage a double proportion and also upon fair clean lay Turf and this you may manage with two men and four good horses but not either upon stony land or rough land the description and discourse wherof I give not in as of any great advantage above the other plain plough but for variety sake and to provok others to the amendment and perfecting of this discovery yet I for present see not but it may be of excellent use expedition upon many lands in England and to say much more is needless in regard of what hath been before spoken and experience of a good ploughman will order it at pleasure And so I shall onely discover one other plough that will both plow and harrow of it self at one and the same time and it is used in severall places in Norfolk yet casting about with my self the advantages and disadvantages also and finding not how it will so well suit with our common wayes of Husbandry as to be a general advantage I shall say the less only tell you the manner of it It is a common light Plough as all theirs are and as little and light a Harrow which may contain three little Buls about five Tines in a bull which is made light also and fixed to the plough at the one end of the beam so that as the plough turns this turns also and as the plough turns one furrow the harrow harrows it over reaching two more furrows and so by the over-reaching it strikes two or three times in one place which is sufficient for the covering any corn whatsoever shal be sowen upon Norfolk lands but finding these two prejudices against it viz either this land must be sowed as the land is plowed so it will take up a mans time sowing an Acre when otherwise a man will sow nine or ten Acres in one day or else it must be sowed before plowing and then it must be plowed in and harrowed upon the top of it which falls not under my experience having known much land â—all far the heavier and more subject to bind and bury than if onely lightly covered with the plough and laid more open and now thou â—ast the story that such a thing is and may be done may thy own experience be the determiner of the matter but after the writing hereof having communicated thus much to a Gentleman of art and worth do find that another addition may be made thereto which is how to drop the corn corn by corn proportionably to that quantity I desire to sow upon an Acre which if by his assistance I can experimentally make out I fear not to give you plough and harrow and seedsman all at once and all to work with two horses and one man upon some lands and with three horses upon all of this nature al to be done almost within the same compass of time that you are upon the plowing of it it shall not require one hour in the day more which if I shal accomplish you shall save near three parts of your seed also and a considerable peece of labour too and not fail to have a better crop through the blessing of him that waters all than ordinary wise All which I hope to have brought into substantiall experience upon my own lands by the next edition and then expect the faithfull communication thereof One word more which would have come in more seasonable about the description of the plain plough and that is how to make a plough that may last many years ten or twelve or fifteen years yea I heard a workman affirm he would make one should last twenty years As for the manner of the plow it is sufficiently spoken to already all lyeth in two things one thing is the wood it is to be made of and the other is the workmanship of it The wood especiall of the Sheath and plough-head which is the materiall fundamentall peece in the Plough must be made of heart of Oak which to me at first seemed strange but upon a full debate of the matter I find that if it be young tough Oak wrought so exact true in the joynts as may be kept so close boarded up as that water cannot get into any of them and laid alway dry and so kept but while in working and every part of it well clouted plated with iron and drawn close in the throat from a hole in the Share through the Head part of the Breast-board with a through iron pin which is to be wrought somewhat bigger under the head that so it may somewhat strain the share to a more perfect closure and stronger sticking to the head and wel cottered up through the beam being bored with a long shanked Auger through al And al the rest of the wood to be young white tough Ash and wrought compleat and true in every joynt laid up when out of use both out of wind weather out of question a good plough may well serve a mans uncertain life and so having as I hope in some good measure supplied that deficiency in Husbandry Mr. Hartlips Legacy chargeth us withall in the fifth page of his Book and so proceed to the next peece of Improvement The Third Peece of Improvement treats of Welde Woade and Madder three rich commodities for the Dyars CHAP. XXXIIII Onely holds forth Welde or Would as some call it or more properly Dyars-weed IT being a rich Dyars commodity beareth a long narrow greenish yellow leaf and bringeth forth a yellow flower which runs to a small seed far smaller than a Mustard seed very thick set with seed Pliny calles it Luted but Virgyll calls it Lutum and in our English Welde or Dyars-Weed It flourisheth in Iune and Iuly it in many places growth of it self in and about villages and towns and is of a very great use and considering the easie charge of the raising of it and the badness of the land upon which it will grow is of incomparable advantage For first it will grow of very indifferent land not worth above ten groats or half a Crown per Acre yea as some affirm the veryest hilly barren chalky light land not worth twelve pence per Acre will carry it and bear it to very good purpose but unto so barren lands I shall not give incouragement unless where there is little or none better but as any indifferent land so it be of a very dry warm nature it will do very well
And secondly it will cost but a little the managing it requires no tillage at all no harrowing it being to bee sowed when and where you sow your Barley or oâ—ts upon that Husbandry without any other addition unless you draw a bush over it or a role either of which is sufficient to cover it after you have sowed it the difficultest peece in the managing hereof is the very sowing of it that is that it may be sowed even for the seed being so very small will require both skill and an even hand to scatter it some sow it by taking it with one finger and the thumb others with the two fore-fingers and the thumb but neither of these do I affect the best way because they cannot spread it so well as they may with their whole hand I therefore prescribe a mixture with Ashes Lime fine earth or some such thing as will best suit with the weight of the seed for could you find out that that agreed both in weight and bigness then out of all question none to that to sow it withall A gallon of this seed will sow an Acre which had need to every quart of seed have two gallous of some of the aforesaid and it must be often stirred together lest that the seed sink to the bottom and sow that part thicker than the other and then cast it out at arms end at as good and even compass as you can possibly This seed thus sowed may grow up among the Corn and yet be no prejudice because it groweth not fast the first Summer but after the Corn is cut it must be preserved And the next Summer you shall receive through Gods blessing a comfortable crop you must be exceedingly curious of the ripening of it if yon let it grow too long your seed will fall out if not long enough your seed will not be perfect nor your stalk neither and therefore observe both the turning of the seed and the ripenining of the stalk for I cannot tel you which of either will admit of a dispensation and as soon as ever you perceive it near up to perfect ripeness you must down with it that is pull it as you do Flax up by the roots and bind it in little handâ—uls and set it up to dry in little stilches or stitches untill both seed and stalk be both dry and then carried away carefully as that the seed be not lost and laid up dry and so keep as you see cause for a good market for it is to be sold for the Dyars use who sometimes will give a very good price but at all times sufficient profit and go far to buy it from forty shillings an Acre to ten or twelve pound an Acre some say more And you may barn it up and keep it and the seed together untill March and then you may get out this seed by lashing or whipping of it forth upon a board or door which reserve for seed the seed is of good value sometimes worth twenty shillings a bushell and sometime ten shillings a bashell and sometimes more or less as markets rise and fall It coloureth the bright yellow and the Lemon colour The stalk and root are both useful and must go together to the Dyar And if this Weed prosper well as questionless it will after you be got into good seed this will make good my promise if it prove worth but forty shillings per Acre the land being not worth above five shillings or six shillings eight pence as either of these will do exceeding well the charges of sowing and all things till you come to pulling it is not above one shilling per Acre the pulling whipping and barning may come to four shillings more the seed may be worth half a crown so that all charges and rent of the land may amount unto less but I will say fifteen shillings then the Improvement will be fourfold if worth four pound ten shillings an Acre fixsold if worth six pound per acre eight fold and much more as some affirm to sixteenfold Improvement This Land though it lie far from Towns Cities yea in your remotest Countries may be brought to this height of Improvement and it begins much to spread and thrives very well in Kent in many parts of it the best place for to get the seed is in Kent clean down to Canterbury and Wy where you may see both the land the growth and discover the mystery therof It is sold by weight so much a hundred and so much a tun weight It is my desire to make publique whatever comes under my experience yet this hath been used this many years by many private Gentlemen in divers parts but not discovered for publique practice but no marvell for that great business of planting Hops that is one of the famous peeces of our Nation hath not any thing been wrote near this fourscore years that I can read of and indeed then was wrote a large discourse thereof but I remember not his name or else I should have here raised up his memorial having done exceeding well thereon but that all this time of so large experience none should get upon his shoulders and a little add to his beginnings is the unthankfulness and shame of your great Hop-masters I fear mens spirits are strangely private that have made excellent experiments and yet will not communicate surely me-thinks plenty and publique fulness should not be so much feared as rejoyced in And so I hope in this I have in some measure supplyed my promise CHAP. XXXV Treats of Woad the Land best for it the usage of it and advantages thereby WOad it is also a great commodiâ—y it layes the foundation for the solidity of very many colours more A Woaded colour is free from stayning excellent for holding its color almost any sad holding colur must be Waoded It hath been one of the greatest Inrichments to the masters thereof untill the midst of our late Wars of any fruit the land did bear It is called Glastum or Garden-woad by the Italians called Guâ—do in Spanish and in French Pastell in Dutch Wert and in English Woad or Wade It hath flat long leaves like Behen rubrum the stalk is small and tender the leaves are of a blewish green colour The seed is likest to an Ash-key or seed but not so long like little blackish tongues The root is white and simple It is a very choyce seed to grow and thrive well it beareth a yellow flower and requires very rich land and very sound and warm so that very warm earth either a little gravellish or sandish will doe exceeding well but the purer warmer solid earth is best Land exceeding rich and though it should be mixed with a little clay will do well but it must be very warm There is not much land fit for this design in many Countries especially your hardest Wood-land parts you have in many of your great deep rich pastures
many hils and hill sides good Woad-ground when the bottom ground will doeno service but your chifest is your home-corse or lesser ground lying near and bordering about the towns Your best and naturallest parts of England for Woad are some part of Worcestershire and Warwickshire Southward Oxfordshire Gloucestershire Northamptonshire Leicestershire some part of Rutland Bedfordshire and Buckinghamshire and some other places here and there all these parts have some admirable Woad-land in them But when it is a quick commodity as now it is dull they will find as much more land as now they will and then more indifferent dry sound warm land will serve but very dry and sound it must be and worth about twenty shillings an Acre to grase at least or else it will not bee worth the Woading And to plow to sow Woad it may be worth as much more as to grase woad- yea somewhat more if it be extraordinary rich soyl and trading good but now as the seasons are and trading stands they will now make great orts of land and not bid any money for that which in good trading times they would have gone fifty miles to have took at great rates And wheras some write that it undoeth the land I answer as I judge in my own breast that in regard it is so often cut and groweth so thick and is so often weeding that it must needs do so as I beleeve al Corn doth draw forth some of the spirit therof but no more than other Grain would if it could be so oft cut up to grow again But it is the confidence of many Woad-men that will maintain against any man that it betters the land and mends it but to that I cannot accord neither but thus much I doe say it prepares the Land exceedingly for corn and doth a bate of the strength and superrichness or rankness thereof which corn would not wel endure for I maintain still that the richest Land is not best to corn for though the one may ouer-burthen and be so rank yet the other may bear as much to the strike and for goodness your middle Land beareth the bell away for corn in my opinion Very much may be spoke to this particular but I must shorten and will as much as may be and acquaint you with the use thereof And herein I must do these three or four things 1. Shew you how the Land must be prepared and sowed 2. Shew you how it must be ordered when the leaf must be cut and how ordered after cutting 3. And lastly how it must be tempered and seasoned to make the best Woad for use and profit but before I proceed I must inform my Reader that this commodity can not be played withall as you may doe with Liquorish and Saffron c. to make experiments of a little parcell but a man must of necessity set forth and forward so much stock and Land and seed as may keep one Mill or two at work to make it into perfect Woad It is the doing of a great quantity and carrying on a great stock that makes this work and will carry it on to profit and credit Some have as much underhand and will work six or eight Mills The charge of it is exceeding great in the mannagement of it and as well it payeth for all charges as any commodity I know of that is of old experience The ground must be old Land as aforesaid and a tender Turf and must be exceeding choicely plowed if very hilly they must be cast and well cast that that you cast forth lie not high to raise the furrow they usually plow outward or cast all their Lands at the first Plowing and having broke the ground with a Harrow then they sow it and sow about four bushels or strikes of an acre which done then cover it and harrow it very well and fine and pick of al the Clots Turvees and stones and lay in the hollow places of the ridge on heapes as is the usuall custom but now I should rather if there be no other reason than I conceive chuse to take a little Cart with one horse and as the boyes or children pick them up cast them into the Cart and carry them into some flank or hollow place and lay them down to rot or else mend some barren place because they lose a good considerable part of Land and so of Oad too which otherwise might be as good as the rest and is now worth nothing the Land that is lost is very considerable in regard it is so goood of it self and the stock so good and rich that is sowed upon it that all even ground had need be regained that possibly may be And so I descend to the second particular 2. Which is to shew how it is to be husbandried and when the leaf must be cut and how used and how oft c. After the Land is sowed and it begins to come up as soon as any weed appears it must be weedded yea may be twice weeded or more if it require before it be ready to cut but if it be speciall good and come thick and cover the ground well it will ask the less weeding to them that are exercised in this service and have their work and work folks at command they will have it weeded for eight pence an acre and sometime less as soon as the leaf is come to its full growth which will be sometime sooner sometime later as the year is dryer or moister more fruitfull or less which when you perceive at the full ripeness set to cutting of it As soon as ever it is cut you Mills being prepared and great broad fleakes so many as may receive one Crop prepared and planted upon galleries or stories made with poles Fir alder or other wood whatsoever your Mill is usually known a large Wheel both in height and bredth and weigh doth the best it is a double wheel and the Tooth or ribs that cut the Woad are placed from one side of the Wheel to the other very thick wrought sharp and keen at the Edge and as soon as the Woad is cut and comes out of the field it is to be put into the Mill and ground one kilnfull after another as fast as may be the joyce of the leaf must be preserved in it and not lost by any means and when it is ground it is to be made in balls round about the bigness of a ball without any composition at all and then presently laid one by one upon the fleakes to dry and as soon as dryed which will be sooner or later as the season is they are to be taken down and laid together and more put in their places but because all Circumstances will be too tedious to discourse the work is a common work and very many wel versed therein I will rather advise my Reader to get a workman from the Woad-works which can carry it on artificially
unto as much more it hath been sold from twenty pound the best Woad to thirty pound and back again from thirty pound and twenty six pound down to six pound a Tun. CHAP. XXXVI Which discovers the nature use and advantage of Madder ANd so I shall descend to my third Dyers commodity in relation to Dying or Colouring and that is to the story of Madder that colours the rich and best solid Red the which if I can so mannage as to bring it unto the same progress as Oad is brought unto in England I mean that whereas though very rarely it is now planted in some gardens and in some small plots of ground and doth amount unto a very great advantage to the Planter by the sets they sell forth and by the roots they draw to vent to the Apothecary and medicinably to others and yet so make a most excelling value of their Lands indeed beyond credence some have made as I have been most credibly informed after the rate of three hundred pounds an Acre in three years for so long it grows before it come unto peâ—fection and others that have sold it whole-sale a parcell together at the worst advantage after one hundred and sixty pounds per Acre and some have out of small plots in gardens made more than I have or will here affirm and however though I shall be so modest as to confess that much of your garden stuff may yeeld with the cost and labour that is continually applyed thereto as much or more than here is spoken of as I am confident I could name divers things which some preserve as rich Treasure in their brains and will not discover them yet this I shall affirm that this being a fundamentall fruit and such a one as that the plenty thereof will not much abate the market Our dying trade being supplyied herewith from beyond the Seas that the Erection of such a Plantation as may bring it forth wrought up and fitted to the dyars use and so be a supply to our selves within our selves I am confident is a design of incomparable good to the Common-Wealth especially it imploying so many hands as will be to bring it to perfection It is like to prove a staple commodity and will turn land to as great an advance as any seed or root that it is capeable to receive and need no more fear want of markets for the venting of it than wee need for wooll that staple commodity of the Nation And because the discovery thereof is a matter of so great Importance I shall spend a little more time in the discovery of the whole frame hereof And I shall proceed to the description of it There is bute on kind of Madder which is manured and set for use but there is many things like thereto as Goose-grass soft Cliver Ladies Bedshaw Woodroof and Croswort all which are like to Madder leaves and are thought to be a wild kinds thereof It hath long stalks or trayling branches dispersed upon the ground rough and full of joynts and every joint set with green rough leaves in manner of a Star The flowers grow at top of the branches of a faint yellow colour after which comes the seed round and green The root creepeth far abroad within the upper crust of the Earth intangling one root into another and when it is green and fresh the root is of a reddish colour it is small and tender but gathers and runs in the ground just like an Ivy along a House or Tree It is a commodity of much value Patentees strove hard for it and Patents were gained about it in the late Kings daies and yet now in these times of freedom who pursues it For the making out a good Plantation hereof I must do these three or four things 1. Shew you what it comes of and how to plant it and preserve it 2. How to get it and use it to bring it to saleable Madder 3. The benefit and advantage nationall and personall Although it bear a seed yet that seed comes not to perfection here it is therefore to be planted of the sets that are to be gotten from the Madder it self and they are be bought in many gardens in London who keep up that Plantation for the advantage of selling their sets and roots Physically to the Apothecaries onely all the skill is to distinguish of the goodness thereof And for the discovery thereof first know the season of getting or rather drawing them which is in March and Aprill yea as soon as they are sprung forth of the ground two or three inches long then you must be carefull you get sets rooted Every set having some suckors or spinies of root going out from them they must be slipped from the main root and these sets as soon as ever took up put into some basket with a little mould and posted to the place where they are to be set the sooner the better and then your ground being very rich it cannot be too rich for this commodity however it must be a warm and very deep soil and digged two or three spade graft depth and two shovellings also and raked and laid even and levell and then by streight lines trode out into long beds about four foot broad from one end of your work into the other and set about one foot asunder every way and if it be a dry spring they must be kept with watering untill they recover their fading wan condition you may begin to dig your ground in the beginning so all along Winter till the very day of setting and then you must keep it with weeding and hoing till it have got the mastership of the weeds and then it being a weed of it self wil destroy all other One rod of ground is worth seaven pence a rod diging or if very dry strong ground eight pence but six pence the best ground will require and you may sow some early sallet Herbs or Reddish or Onions or such things as will be ripe betimes among it the first year good weeding is the best preservative unto it and in your setting of them by a line one goes before and layeth every set in his place and another comes and with a broad dibble made for purpose thrust down deep and open a hole and put in the set and for the nourishing of it in case any dye you must plant new in the room of what decayes for the time of the growing of it untill it come to perfection is three yeares the first yeare you may take off some few sets here and there but that is somewhat dangerous but that year it must be kept with hoing a while also and then the second year you may take up sets as fast as you will and almost as many as you wil leaving but as you do in the croping of an Oak one bough for the drawing up the sap out of the root being so thick and strong in the ground that nothing will
wild hops the stalk will wax red pul it down plant new in their places As for the annuall charge of the Hop-garden after it is planted the dressing the hills the alleys the hoing them the poling and tying to the poles and ordeing the hops is usually done for 40. s. an Acre pulling drying and bagging by the day And so I shall proceed to the drying of them which may be done upon any ordinary kiln with any wood that is dry but not too old or else good sweet Rie straw will do wel but charcoal best of all They must be laid about 9 or 10 inches thick and dried a good while on that fide then turned upside down dried as much on the other side About 12 hours wil dry a kiln full which must be followed night and day then laid up in a close room upon a heap together for a month if your markets will give way to frume and forgive again When the stalk begins to be brittle the leaf also begins to rub then the hop is dryed sufficiently but tread them not while they are hot it wil tread thē to dust thē either against Sturbridge Fair or what other markets thou providest for thou mayst bag them up as close hard as is possible either to 200 or 200 a quarter in a bag as thou pleasest but the usuall bag is 200 a quarter And so I come to my third particular to shew you the profits advantages that are to be gained therby One acre of good hops may possibly be worth at a good market 40 50 or 60 pound An acre may bear 11 or 12 hundred weight possibly some have done more many ten but grant but eight hundred they are sometimes worth not above 1. l. 4. s. the hundred and some other times they have been worth 12 or 14. l. a hundred and usually once in three years they bring money enough It is an excellent commodity if curiously well husbandried I know in cōmon waies of opping a Gentleman hath made of two Acres and a rod 180. l. in one year the same ground hath after it hath been improved let for 50 l. per an to a Hop-master nay I beleeve I could easily presidēt you with 100. l. that hath bin made of one Acre may be more It is usually a very good commodity many times extraordinary and our nation may ascribe it unto it self to raise the best Hops of any other Nation The constant charge of a Hopgarden is usually known men order and dress thē at a rate by the Acre all the year And this very way I fear not to make out my Improvements promised CHAP. XXXVIII Treats of the mystery of Saffron and way of Planting of it THere is another very rich cōmodity wherin our nation hath the glory yet is a ver◠mystery to many parts of it they know not whether such a thing grows in England yet none such so good grows in the world beside that I have ever read of that is Saffron Now Saffron is a very soveraign and wholsom thing if it take right it is a very great advantage for price it hath its ebbings its flowings as almost all things have yet I would fain give encouragement to this Improvement also I shall briefly give you the story of it Good land that is of the value of 20. s. an Acre being well husbandryed tilled fitted or worser land being well manured brought to perfect tillage wil serve the turn but the better the better for the work The season is about Midsummer which it is to be set that being the season they usually take up or draw their sets or roots and old store when they may be had no time else The land being brought into perfect Tillage the best way is to make a tool like a ho in operation but as broad as six of thē it may be 15 or 18 Inches broad with that they draw their land into ranges open as it were a furrow about 2 or 3 inches deep there place their sets or roots of Saffron about 2 or 3 inches asunder which roots are to be bought by the strike sometimes dearer sometimes cheaper and are very like an Onion a little Onion about an inch and a half over and as soon as they have made one furrow all along their land from one end to another then they after that is set begin another and draw that which they raise next to cover this and so as they make their trench so they cover the other they keep one even depth as near as may be which ranges or furrows are not above three or four inches distance that so a hoe of two or three incnches may go betwixt them to draw up the weed which being set and covered it may come up that summer but it dies again yet it lives al winter grows green like Chives or small Leeks and in the begining of summer it dieth wholly the blade of it as to appearance that so one may come take a hoe draw all over it and cleanse it very purely and then will come up the flower without the leaf and in September the flower of it appears like Crocus that is blew and in the middle of it comes up two or three chives which grow upright together the rest of the flower spreads broad which chives that is the very Saffron no maore which you may take betwixt your fingers and hold it and cast away all the rest of the flower and reserve that onely and so they pick it and they must pick it every morning early or else it returns back into the body of it to the earth againe untill next morning and so from one to another for a months space will it bear Saffron you must get as many pickers as may overcome it before it strike in again at the very nick in the morning It will grow to bear 2 crops and then it must be taken up planted new again and then it will yeeld good store of sets to spare which cannot be had no other way it must be taken up at Midsummer and then set as aforesaid And when you have got your Saffron then you must set a drying of it and thus you must do make a kiln of clay not half so big as a Bee hive and very like it will be made with a few little sticks and clay and serve excellent well for this service a little small fire of charcole will serve to dry it and it must be carefully tended also Three pounds of wet Saffron wil make one of dry Saffron An Acre of Land may bear 14. or 15 l. of Saffron if very good but if but 7 or 8 l. it will do the work And one Acre of it wil be mannaged with no great charge I do not beleive it can come to 4 l. an
Acre it hath been sold from 20 s. a pound to 5 l. a pound It is an excellent advantage and brings in at worst a saving bargain but it may possibly be worth 30 or 40 l. an Acre but if it come but to 7 or 8 l. it loseth not so I have given thee a brief story wherein I would have been more large but having lost my observations upon it which I took when I was upon the very Lands and received full satisfaction in every particular and member or branch thereof but as yet it hath not fell under my own experience therfore I give the heads as I remember as they were delivered unto me upon the place though I have forgot many of them to incourage to the work The Saffron Country is on one side and â—ook of Essex and some part of Suffolk and at Saffron Walden and betwixt that and Cambridge is very much of it in their common fields and truly these Lands are but of a middle worth I have seen as rich land again in many parts of England but it is as I believe loamy ground and of a little saddish nature it will require to be laid dry and sound and the land it self must be very sound wholsom Land CHAP. XXXIX Treats of the Plantation of Liquorish at large I Proceed to another Nationall business in the Plantation whereof we exceed all Nations and that is Liquorish our English Liquorish as wee call it not yet wrote of by any that I could ever see is far beyond the Spanish small dry Liquorish or any other As for the use of it most of you know but as to the profit advaÌ„tage the mystery of Planting of it but few understand fewer practise but that I may be as open and full in the discovery of it as I can in this short discourse I have to make I shal under these two or three heads formalize what I intend to speak 1. Shall be to discover the best land to bear it 2. The best way I can find practised to plant it 3. The profits and advantages of it The best Land to raise your Liquorish upon is your richest you can get or make your warmest you can find out the soundest and dryest that is possibly to be had of a very deep soyl you must dig and prepare your Land before you set and it must be digged three spades depth and two or three shovellings at the least laid as hollow light as may be you may have it digged out of naturall Land if it be very rich indeed that it will feed an Ox in a summer it is the best for eight pence a rod at London yea for seven pence and sometimes for six pence a rod forty rods make a rood which is a quarter of an Acre which comes to about 4 or 5 l. an acre this is the main charge of all for three year there is no more unless it be a little hoing which will off hand very fast I believe it will not cost above 20 s. an acre more all three yeares both in setting and all the dressings of it besides the sets and Land The sets being doubly trebly worth your money sets have been sold for 2 s. the hundred more sometimes are not worth above 1 s. a hundred but if your Land be not fresh old Land or extraordinary rich as rich as your best gardens are it must be made so with soyles warm Manures horse-dung is excellent to be intrenched into the Earth it both warms and lightens it and makes it very fit for this service About London is very seruiceable Lands for it so is on any dry soyl whatever where it is rich enough deep Holland in Lincolnshire must needs be very good many of the Marshes that are sandy and warm most excellent that which bears this well wil also bear your Madder-weed that rich commodity I hear that Liquorish grows naturally at VVorsop in Nottinghamshire and about Pomphret in Yorkshire so also I heare your sparrow-grass grows naturally at Moulton within a few miles of Spauldwin in Lincolnshire and so I proceed to my third particular Which is the best experimented way of planting of it Having digged and prepared your Land and a little raked and evened the same you may proceed to the Planting of it therein you must indeavour the procuring of the best sets you can and from the best and largest sort of Liquorish The best sets are your Crown sets or heads got from the very top of the root a little shived down be carefull of this of very sound Land for how soon soever you come to the water your Liquorish will check and run not one inch further and having procured your sets your ground being cast into beds of 4 foot broad all along your plantation from one end to another by a long line you may lay down a set at every foot along the line which line may have knots or thirds at every foot if you be so exact and then a man come with a tool made a little flattish if you will or roundish of the breadth or bigness of a good pickfork stail about half a yard long with a crutch at the over end and sharp at the neather and that thrust into the ground it being made of wood or iron but if flat an iron one will do best and open the hole well and put in the set and close a little mould to it and so you may overrun an acre very quickly in the setting of it and if it should prove a very dry time you must water your sets wo or three daies at first untill you see they have recoved their withered and wanness and then the first year you may Plant your garden with Onions Reddishe or any sallet herb or any thing that roots not downward and I am confident it will be better too because it will prevent some weeding and for the second it must be hoed and kept from weeds too and a little the third but one thing be very curious off in the taking up and sudden setting thy sets as soon as took up set again but if you fetch from far then as soon as taken up put a little mould and post them away by horse back and get them into the ground as soon as possibly the delay of setting spoiles many thousand sets The seasons of planting is in the month of Feb. and March You may the secoud year take some sets from your own stock but be very curious thereof but the third year you may take what you please and in the taking of the Liquorish up the best season for which is in November and December then there runs from every master root a runner which runs along the over part of the ground which hath a little sprouts and roots or sciences which will yeeld excellent sets if they be cut 3 or four of them in every set which
good cloath better for use then theirs Object You will presently say we want Work-men especially such as do it well Answ. To that I shall answer people wee have enough you will confesse it and some that can worke well too where is the fault then I being not a Tradesman can scarce tell you but onely will desire an answer to this question and then it may be I shall resolve you what hath made cloathing common among us and made Worke-men at it too but the very Trade of it the experimenting of it to purpose the carring it on with power and purse that by this meanes where ever it is planted there needs no work-folks they are ready to come from all parts where work may be had then that is supplyed It is true at the first setting up people are raw untaught and not very willing to learne and may be as ever it was in all new inventions or setting up new works you may suffer some losse and spoyle yet if this be backed with publike countenance and authority I feare not any suffering at all but if you should you are but in the condition of all honest publike ingenuous spirits And secondly I shall answer that nothing ever did or will come to perfection without great experiences constant practises and great scrutiny into the bowels of it and that will draw forth the mystery and that is the profit and glory of all Trade and Merchandise and then why we should not make fine cloath and almost any cloth of our Flax and raise our Flax to a great betterment too I know not I could name many things in England now are made as good with us as few yeares since wee could not but were made altogether a beyond seas and we supplyed from thence but grant wee raise not so pure a Flax then buy your Flax from the East or Best Countries endeavour the Trade of making your finer cloath thence and your courser from our own untill our Flax come up to theirs in goodnesse which I am confident will refine exceedingly both in the growth and workmanship of it however use all meanes as to preserve the Trade of cloathing Linning so far as our owne native Hempe and Flax will I have heard of most pure cloath some Gentlewomen have made of their own flax and Hemp. I shall now proceed to a briefe discription of the way of raising it As for the seed of it that is familiarly bought and sold in all places in the season but the best seed is your brightest which you may try by rubbing of it in your hand if it crumble with rubbing it is bad but if it still retain its substance and colour it is good The best land for it is your warme land your sandy or a little gravelly so it be very rich and of a deepe soyl will doe well as for your cold claies as some affirme to bee good for Hempe they exceedingly abuse the Reader it is as tender a seed as any I know and to make good my affirmation as to the land consider the land where the best Hempe of England grows which is upon the Fens and Marshes and especially in Holland in Lincolnshire where the land is very rich and very sandy and light but their morish land though rich is not good and yet the very best land they can picke there is but good enough for it yea that very land they are forced to dung and soyl exceedingly too after two or three crops or else it will not doe Nettleplots and Thistle-plots and land over growne wiâ—h the rankest weeds if well purged there-from will doe exceeding well for Hempe The quantity that is to be sowed upon our statute Acre is three strike or bushels and harrowed in with small harrowes the which after the land is made exceeding fine as the finest garden then in the beginning and middle of April is the time they sow it some sow it not till the end of April but if it be any thing a kindly year the earlier the better and so preserved exceeding choicely at first for feare of birds destroying of it as you see in many Countries but yet there where they sow so much they never value it bee carefull that cattel neither bite it nor lie upon it for though some say it matters not for being kept from Cattel so they may save the fencing of it yet I say if it be either bitten or else but a beast lyeth upon it after it is come up it will destroy it The season of getting of it is first about Lammas when a good part of it will be ripe it may be about one half that is a lighter Summer Hempe that beares no seede and the stalke growes white and ripe and most easily discernable which is about that season to be pulled forth and dryed and laid up for use or watered and wrought up as all hous-wives know which you must pul as neatly as you can from among the rest lest you break it for what you breake you utterly destroy and then you must let the other grow for seed untill it be ripe which wil be about Michaelmas or a little before may be a fortnight before when seed and stalke are both full ripe and you come to pull you bind up in bundles as much as a yard band will hold which is the legal measure but for your simple or Summer Hempe that is bound in lesser bundles as much as may be grasped with both your hands and when your Winter Hempe is pulled you must stocke it up or barne it any way to keep it dry and then in the season of the yeare or when you please thrash it and get out the seed and still preserve your Hempe till you set to the working of it which instead of breaking and tawing of it as they doe in most parts there they altogether pill it and no more and so sell it in the rough but I leave all at liberty for that whether to pill or dresse up by brake and Tewtaw As for the seed an Acre will beare is two or three quarter and it is there sold but usually about a mark a quarter sometime ten shillings and sometime less this yeare it was sold for twenty shillings a quarter if good great Hempe then store of seed else not but in many and most parts of the Nation it is sold for about four shilling a bushel Your fimbled Hempe is not worth above halfe so much as your other sometimes it is subject to weeds to carlock and muckel-weed which must be weeded but the best way to destroy them is to let you Hempe-land lie one yeare fallow I onely speake of Holland the cheapest place for it and the first fountain of it but generally throughout the Nation it is of far more worth and value The richer your land is the thinner the poorer the thicker you must sow One Acre of good Hempe may bee worth five six
seven or eight pound an Acre sold as soone as pulled and gathered but if it be wrought up it may come to eight nine ten or twelve pound or more it is a common thing in use every one knowes the manner of working of it to cloath It maintaines many people in a good imployment and ought to have more publick incouragement given to it not so much becaâ—se of its advance of land as the poor poople of the Land CHAP. XLI Onely speakes to the husbandring Flax so as to make it come up to as much of the improvement as we can FLax it is a very good Commodity and I shall endeavour to incourage all ingenuous men that delight in the common good thereto as much as may be especially all such as have suitable lands therefore upon this account because it is as I may call it a root or roundation of advantage upon the prosperity whereof depends the maintenance of thousands of people in good honest and laborious callings and were but this very peece of husbandry advanced the sowing and raising of it according to the capacity the lands of this Nation will afford I dare affirme to hold it forth against the stoutest opponent that it would maintaine neare all the wanting people of this Nation A volume is too little to containe this vast Discourse yet take an abstract of it which for the more methodicall demonstration shall be held forth under these heads 1. The severall Lands capable of improvement hereby 2. The many people capable of imploymen hereby 3. The best experiences of plantiug and raising to the best advantage 4. The profit accrewing there from both general and particular 1. As for the land capable of raising good flax is any good sound Land be it in what Country sover it will if the land be good either earthy or mixed of sand or gravel and old land it is the best that hath lyen long unplowed it had need come up to the value of a mark or near twenty shillings an Acre that is your kindest slax-land but I know where they give three pound an Acre to sow flax upon within a mile of London and yet in most Counties of England I know as good and kind land for that husbandry as any other and at London they have work-men dearer too and yet can raise though they give so dear a very considerable profit out beside Again any of your good Arrable that is in good Heart and rich that is perfect sound drie land is perfect good flax land Some parts of Essex from Bow and Stratford down along the way by the Marsh side a great part of up-land thereabouts is good flax Land so is there very much in Kent all along on the other side the river by the marshes side is good naturall land thereto in very many parts about Maidstone in Kent where the best thred is made of England is excellent good flax-land so is there also in most Counties as Warwick-shire Worcestershire Northampton c. 2. And that I may give the more incouragement here to spin I say as heretofore it is a commodity that will set abundance of persons upon an honest and profitable calling from the first preparing the land untill the fruit of your labours come in one acre of good flaxe may maintain divers persons to the compleating of it to perfect cloth Consider how many Trades are supplyed hereby 1. The Land must have the same husbandrie of plowing harrowing and sowing as lands have for corne there 's the husbandmans businesse sometimes yea many times weeding too then pulling stitching and drying then rippelling and laying up and preserving the seed then watering it either on the ground or in the water then drying it up and housing it and kilne-drying it then breaking and towtawing it then hetchelling and dressing it up then spinning of it to yarne or thred then weaving of it and bleaching then it returnes againe to the good house-wives use or Seamster and then to the wearing and usage and all these particular imployments be upon this poore businesse halfe a dozen good callings and imployments this makes out and therefore many persons it will imploy and we both want cloth and our poor work 3. Now as to the carrying on this design and making the best of this improvement I shall here give in the best approved way of planting of it as is yet discoved as for the Land let it be good and well plowed both strait and even without balkes and in due season about the beginning of March or the latter end of February And as for the seed the true East Country seed is far the best although it cost very dear one bushel of it to sowe is worth ten bushels of our owne Couetry seede but the second crop of our own of this Country seed is very good and the third indifferent but then no more but again to your best seed The quantity of it is about two bushels upon an Acre at least some sow a pecke more but I conceive two may bee enough but of our seed it will require halfe a strike more then of the East Country seed you may buy it in the Seed-mens shops at Billingsgate our Flax men in former dayes did not sow above half so much or little more but now their experience hath brought them to this pitch At my first knowledge of the East-country flax seede for the perfect discoverie of the goodnesse of it I sowed one land the ridge or middle of the Land with our own Countrie seed and both the furrowes with this Dutch or East-country seed our seed was incompassed with this as with a wall abought it it so much over-grew it in height The season of sowing of it if a warme season in the latter end of March but in the warmer parts as Essex and Kent I conceive mid March may doe well but in colder parts as down towards Warwick-shire and Worcester-shire the beginning of April may be early enough and if it should come a very wet seasoÌ„ you must take care of weeding of it also and in the ripening of it you must be careful that it grow not till it be over-ripe lest the stalk should blacken or mildew yet to his full ripeness you must let it grow the which you may perceive both by the harle and by the seed some will ripen earlier and some later as you sow it earlier or later but against it be ripe be sure to have your pluckers to fall in hand with plucking of it and then tie up every handfull and then set them up upright one against another like a Tent till they be perfectly drie and then get it all into the baâ—ne or where you please to preserve it for use it is indifferent whether you ripple it or take off the boles of it as soone as you bring it home or when you intend to use it As for your watering of it whether in
the water or upon the Land that I shall not determine peremptorily but thus much I say that both may doe well and he that gets store will find use of both because of the one you make use as soone as your flax is pulled and then you need not stand so curiously upon the drying of it but after you have got your seed you may water it and the watering of it opens and breakes the harle the best but then you must bee carefull of laying up your seede that it heate not nor mould and that which you water then may be a winters worke for your people untill the Spring come on and then get it forth upon your grasse Land and spread it thin and turne it to preserve it from mildewing and keepe it so untill you finde the harle bee ready and willing to part from the core and then drye it up and get it in for use As for the drying of it a kilne made on purpose is best so that you be carefull of scorching of it this will make greate riddance of the same and to them that have greate store sunne-drying will never doe the feate though it may doe well for a small quantity or the flax of a private Family As to the working of it you must provide your Brakes and Tewrawes both the one and that is the brake which bruises and toughens the harl and the Tewtaw that cut and divides out the coare if you use the Tewtaw first it may cut your well dryed flax to peeces yet both do best yet the brake first These things are common and known to many in most Countries but not to all and least to those that have lands most capable thereof It will cost the Workmanship of it betwixt three and four pound an Acre to bring it up to sale it lyeth much upon the workmans hand and therefore far more to be advanced by how much the more it raiseth imployment for many people to live thereby Where wages is great it comes off the hardest yet where it is carried on to purpose people flock hard that want work and because of constancie will worke at easie tearms else how could they possibly do good of it at London or near about it where they work at double rates but there have I seen the best flax I ever saw 4. Lastly the benefit that may be made hereby an Acre of good flax may be worth upon the ground if it be the first East-Country seed seven or eight yea possibly ten or twelve pound yea far more the charge whereof beside the seed untill it be ripe may not be above ten shillings an acre which if you work up to be fit to sell in the Market it may come up to fifteen or sixteen or near twenty pound in the market but to bring it so high as thirty pound as in Flanders I dare not say But an acre of our Country seed will hardly come up to above three pound or four pound an Acre unlesse very good indeed to which if it amount unto and no more upon the Land it will make a good advancement of the Land which may be Land and Seed and all charges may come to about fifteene or sixteene shillings an Acre the seed being not worth above two shillings a strike I shall say thus much more that I verily believe wee are not come up to that perfection wee may attain unto in this mystery because I have heard of some Gentlewomen that have out of their owne Flax and Hempe drawne out a thred exceeding pure as pure and fine againe as our ordinary Traders therein doe and have made as much more cloath of a pound of both and that both strong and more serviceable then the strongest and best Outlandish Hollands and I am confident if this mystery doe but receive incouragement from Authority and it made more tending to publike good the maintenance of the poore in worke and sequestring the Trade so farre to our owne proper Natives as may be a sufficient Magazine of work for them I am sure we have land suitable enough to bear it and to afford sufficient profit and will be a considerable advance unto the lands throughout the Nation And so I hope I have supplyed in some measure more of our deficiencies that really are and are said to be in our English Husbandry The sixth and last Piece of improvement is for the discovering what great advance may be made upon our Lands by a Plantation of some Orchard-fruites and some Garden-commodities CHAP. XLIII Treates how our Lands may be advanced by planting them with Orchard-fruites ANd for making good the Improvement promised I shall shew these two or three things 1. That abundance of Land is planted in many parts of this Nation and thus improved 2. That there is land and very much in all other parts that may be improved 3 The fruits especially by which they come to such an improvement 1. That there is such land alreadey improved none dare deny to that height as is affirmed many will question I therefore doe in briefe affirme for my president that VVorcestershire part of Glocestershire and part of Herefordshire will speake out this truth some men having their Plantations both of Apples Pears and Cheries and so ordered that they hinder no more the growth of grasse then the compasse of a tree that grows upon it nay some question whether with their shadinesse in Summer and warmnesse in Winter they better not the land farre more and their very growing upon it doth not inrich it they having usually the earliest grasse and many times the greatest swath and burthen and will keep more cattell too And certainly where they are formerly planted and grow not too thicke I cannot see reason to the contrary as for the land I know very much if not most of it was worth not above tenne shillings some lesse or thirteen shillings foure pence an Acre at the first now the grasse of most of them thus regularly planted and draw as they grow in bignesse that so they may never grow to touch one another by a good space when they come to the best age for when they come to decay plant new ones in their roome and downe with them to the very grouud I say the grasse of such Orchards or Pastures is worth thirty shillings some forty shillings some fifty shillings and some more and the fruit that groweth upon the Trees planted therein may yeeld some three pound some five pound yea some will come up to seven or eight pound an Acre But come you up to Kent Essex Surry Middlesex and part of Suffolke where naturally the land was worse then in those parts by farre I dare affirme there are many Orchards planted there upon land that was not naturally and really worth above six shillings or eight shillings an Acre when they began the work and that some thousands of Acres too and with some good soyle and
good husbandry dividing quicksetting and laying dry and sound their land and gardening some and planting others with kernels of all sorts of fruits and all sorts of woods and sets and trees have brought many plots some containing five or six acres some to ten or twelve and some to twenty or thirty acres in one plot to that improvement that they have made twenty pound an acre yea if I should say forty or fifty pound I should finde sufficient testimony to the truth hereof and all this while but in preparation for a plantation too their young trees being not come yet to beare nor to shade the land and then they lay it downe to grasse but say the land was worth twenty shillings an acre and some is and very much worth more which is so much better it will prosper and so much lesse cost need bee bestowed and yet by all will be made good the improvement promised These Orchards many of them are worth to grasse forty fifty or three pound per acre and so set their fruite will seldome yeeld them so little as double or treble the worth of their grasse many times five or six fold yea possibly ten fold and what is this towards the making good my improvement promised If this land was not worth above six or ten shillings an acre as very much was not then it is fourfold doubled in the grazing and if it treble in the fruit then there is sixteenfold and if it come up to sixfold in the fruit then there is two and thirty fold I will go no higher but I might and many doe and will the cost bestowed for the two three or four first yeares may be was three or foure pound an Acre may be five pound but then the Garden fruits which they raised upon them the sets the grafts the trees and fruite they raise upon it may bee possibly worth as much more as it is worth when it comes to be laid down to grasse but then it costs no more then mowing their grasse and gathering their fruit and yet during the flourishing condition of this Orchard it shall hold forth the improvement aforesaid Object But some will say this may be true in some few Acres and by some few excelling husbands but in very few persons and upon fâ—wer lands Answ. If any why strive not others after the same pitch why runne not others to the same mark if one Acre why not two if there be one so good a husband why imitate wee not him wee know one man may have as good meanes to the same end as another If one Tradesman get an excellent commodity or attain to an excellent mystery in his Trade do not all men study it thirst after it and endeavour it and may gain it Object You will say our land is not so good there is little such and most lands in England are not for that use and in some Countries little or none at all Answ. To which I answer neither was theirs as good or knowne to bee so good and that is all one untill they made the experiment It is but very few ages since these Countries have been so famous every age hath exceedingly improved and this very last age as it were almost doubled what former ages came to and truly when you have made the same experience you will finde your Land as good and by good husbandry with a strong resolution to the same end will bring forth the accomplishment of the same fruit and so I shall proceed to an answer of the second part of the objection which is there is little such land or little fit land for this use in many Counties in England which brings mee to my second particular which is to shew that there is land as well in all Countries and Counties as those lands of Kent Essex Surry c. and very much in many where is no improvement at all made thereon and that I thus demonstrate by inquiring into the nature and qualifications of these lands and these lands are many of them exceeding dry sound warme lands some perfect sand some gravelly some of a very shallow mould not above halfe a spades pitch before you come to hunger and barrennesse some exceeding stony some of them are upon a very rich soyle as by the Marshes sides some of them are upon a cold spewing wet clayey land but made rich and warme by soyle and husbandry and some upon a perfect clay cold and barren and yet upon them all you have exceeding great advances as aforesaid And that there is some such natured lands in all Countries and in some all these natured lands directly no man will deny and also meanes and soyles to inrich them though not so much but yet I am sure many times more then is improved to so good an advantage and more may be made and gained to inrich them if wee grow industrious And now that I have proved there is such natured lands what remaines to cleare the full demonstration but that as great advancement may bee made in those Countries as in these Why this remaines that they are not under so warme a Climate as those Lands are which is true and this is all that can be said to which I answer 1. Ans. That the climate is much to the drawing forth these fruits and especially to the drawing them forth so early but yet not sufficient excuse to hinder the work for then why should Glocester-shire Worcester-shire and Hereford-stire be so famous I am confident they are as natural and as fruitfull this way as these Countries are only I beleive they are not so quick for sale nor so early ripe may be by a fortnight of dayes which is nothing And the climate is as cold in these Countries as in almost any except two or three of the Northern Countries in which Countries are very much good fruits and many good Orchards too and why not more I know not I doe confess Cherries grow upward more rich early and more profitably then in other parts yet Worcester-shire comes near them but what if they come not up so high they may come up high enough and wee see they will grow well and to good profit in other parts as well as here But say there was not a cherry growing in any of those parts I should not much matter they being only for delight and pleasure yet if good Peares for Perry and Aples for Syder would prosper well which I am confident they would if industriously experimented which would be for the great supply of the poor the whole Countrie for every Town House almost hath an Orchard bigger or lesser that doe and will bear both Apples and Peares of all sorts whatsoever and all Countries have Lands naturall therefore as well as these where there is so great improvements made and therefore I know neither nature nor reason against the same nor nothing else
but ignorance sloth and prejudice and so farre as I know or I beleive any man else knows there is Land enough in every Country suitable hereunto however to make a very substantiall and gallant improvement if not altogether so great as these And as for the sale of them or Perry or Syder we need not much trouble our selves nor hinder our improvements thereby untill our selves our Neighbours and the poor about us are supplyed and then when wee have it to spare to sell it it may bee transported much by water and many places by Cart to places of vent whereas some of it that most excellently made these dayes will teach us may be sold for Wine in thousands of places now it is serves as well as that for men to fox their neses befool themselves and wast their patrimony And so I hope I have sufficiently proved the capacity of advancement of many thousand acres of Lands upon this account yea the great advance might be if you planted but all your barren empty hedges with good fruit Trees and so I descend to my last particular which is Thirdly the speciall fruits I intended and they were these five 1 the Vine 2 the Plumb 3 the Cherry 4 the Pear and 5 the Apple First As to the Vine Plumb I intended not them directly upon this account as to the great advātage their plantations would raise Lands unto because they would be confined to lesser quantities of Land but chiefly to shew the advantages might be raised through their own plantations And for Vines in relation to thēselves I did intend a large discourse wherby to have presumed to have raised a publike experimenting of them to this effect as thence to have raised good and usefull Wines which that it may feasibly be done in this season of Wines dearth I have these two grounds 1 Because the South-west parts of England are within one degree South of the Northern parts of France as Bramont yea the very Latitude of Paris it self is not two degrees South of us but Secondly and chiefly because it hath been made already in many parts as in divers places in Kent and Surry many other parts as old Chronicles report that frequently may unquestionably be raised in case we fail not in the advancement of the Plantation but hit that right But for a weighty reason hereafter discovered I shall say no more But for the three last the Cherry Pear Apple I had absolutly resolved to handle thē at large in the whole mystery of thē both in Setting Planting preserving pressing barrelling Merchandizing of them to clear up the great advance Lands may be raised to by their Plantations but that in this very interim whlist I was about the very work Mr. Samuel Hartlib that publike spirit sent me in this assurance with his desire that I would not publish it to the world that an Oxford Gentleman called Ra. Austen an Artist both learned and experienced had finished a Work fit for the Press of approved experiments in Planting late Fruit from better Rules than have hitherto yet been published of which taking notice I was most willing not onely to publish but to imbrace the tender upon a double score First my own and secondly the publike advantage 1. My own advantage is great being tyred out with journyings travels to evidence my experiences the more candidly to the world to be ceased from the writing thereof by one better able to hold it forth having made it his Master-piece both of study and recreation A brief discourse wherof would have made a considerable Book And Secondly upon the publike advantage too who herby are like to communicate in a more full and copious discovery of the Art and Mystery therof from him that hath ingaged singlely in this business rather than from my self that could but confusedly and not have been so large and full as he may bee Besides this pregoing piece of mine though possibly of little worth might have stifled a better larger in the birth upon a discouragement lest the free sale therof migh in some measure have been retarded hereby I therefore durst not neglect to receive the motion with most reall and candid imbracings CHAP. XLIV Shall containe a brief discourse of some choyce and more generall Garden Fruits intended to have been spoken to more largely AND they were six 1 the Cabbage 2 the Carrot 3 the Onion 4 the Parsnep 5 the Artichoak and 6 the Turnep In the discourse whereof I should have spoken distinctly as I could and have laboured to have laid naked the Mystery of each of them with the best and latest husbandring of them according to use and exercise of our now present art of Planting but expecting it more large in all the members and branches thereof from so learned and experienced a hand who undertakes the task the art of Planting singlely of it self I shall hope to have discharged my promise better by my silence then in holding them forth under so brief and confused discoveries as I have done many other in my foregoing Discourse and should for want of time been forced to have done these And so I shall conclude all and my whole Discourse with a few words to my main scope and aime which is to affirme and prove that by these Plantations Lands may come to a very great advance yea unto as great as the greatest that is affirmed in my Frontispiece but yet never to that height as some have fondly imagined and doe affirm in word and have done in Print they can raise land to many whereof are from severall sorts of Garden-commodities as from some of these and from the great million Pompion which I least matter to own of all the rest I being once so weak as to come to an agreement with Mr. Speed who writes such high things as reason cannot fathom to discover his particulars to me which he gave me in writing some whereof were some of these Garden-commodities and another the planting of Conies upon hard land all which except the Pompion were as well knowne before to my selfe as to him but not that from them to raise so great advantages I never knew nor shall and some other things he told me of as laying up coals at Newark in a dear time which I fear the Merchant hath found out that and to keep them till they grow scarce and ingross them and hold them up to an exceeding price but of the manner how this must be done and some few other things promising him not to reveal them to others I will say no more for in regard I never phactised them I have forgot them and 〈◊〉 shall leave my Reader to search for them from himself as well as 〈…〉 certainly now must needs have made more full experiences of them it being near two year since I had first acquaintance with him but the aforesaid being my own as well as his and all mens
Peece of improvement hath respect unto the Plantations of hops and Liquorish both in relation to the Mystery thereof and profits thereby Chap. XXXVII Treates of Hops plantation and how Land is Improved thereby ibid. How a hop-yard should stand 139. One of the main things in the Hop-yard is raising the hils 140. The profits may be made of them 145. Chap. XXXVIII Treats of the mystery of Saffron and the way of Planting it 148. How to set Saffron ibid. How to pick it pag 149. How to dry it ibid. Chaap XXXIX Treates of the plantation of Liquorish at large 150. The best land for it ibid. How to set your plants 151. The time of planting it 152. The advantage thereof ibid. The fifth Peece contains the 40. 41 42. Chap. And treateth of the Art of Planting of Rape Cole-seed Hemp and Flax with the severall advantages that may be made of each Chap. XL. Containeth onely the discovery of Rape and Cole-seeds Husbandry 253. The best seed ibid. The time of sowing it ibid. VVhen to cut it ibid. How to use it ibid. Chap. XLI Shewes how good a publique commodity hemp is with the manner of planting 255. How to know the best hemp-seed 259. The time of sowing it ibid. The time of getting it ibid. The best land for hemp 260. Chap. XLIII Treateth onely of the husbandring Flax so as to make it come up to as much of the Improvement as wee can 261. How to raise the best Flax. pag. 263. The best Flaxseed ibid. The season for sowing it ibid. The manner of watering it 264. The sixt and last Peece containeth 2 Chapters And discovereth what great advantage may be made upon our lands by a plantation of some Orchard Fruits and some Garden commodities Chap. XLII Treats how our Lands may be advanced by planting them with Orchard fruits 265. Chap. XLIV Doth contain a brief discourse of some choice and more generall Garden fruits intended to have been spoen to more largely 271. FINIS Excellency Necessity Antiquity Gen. 4. 2. Gen 9. 16. â— Chr. 26. 11. Prov. 6. 6. Prov. 15. 19. Prov. 20. 30. Prov. 22. 21. Prov. 12. 20. Prov. 11. 26 Prov. 21. 5 Causes of Barrennesse 1 Cause of Barrenness is ignorance occasioning Prejudice Prov. 4. 15. Prov. 36. 13. 2. Cause is Improvidence and a slavish custome 3. Cause is want of punishment of Idleness and want of Stock to set the poor on work A Crying sin Drunkenness A generall cause of Barrenness Tilling Rockiness Mountainous Improvidence laying down all Lands How to lay down warm Land How cold Land Standing water in winter Mole hils Ob. Ans. Bogginess Constant resting of the water on that Land 1 Head 2 Head Only improve upon great advantage Under great Rivers will be the best Land And under lesser the greater quantities and greatest Improvement Setting water on Pooles or Lakes not so excellent In what Cases to cover land by Water Land sad and moist worst to Improve by watering Land found dry and warm the best Boggy Lands good for watering How to begin the first piece of watering How to make the drayning Trench Shewes how the water is fruitfull How to make the Drayning Trench The best floating season Upoâ— moist Land Upâ—n warm Land A double Advantage of having a water course cut out President of one year cuâ—ting but five or six and the next twenty four President of sandy Land Mr. Plats President President of Boggy Lands To much Trenching is madness There are two sorts of Trenching Manner of making the floating Trench A shallow Trench doth certain hurt and uncertain good How to prevent heaping Earth and in evening the ground How to Level Land Plowing to Levell Spade to help Levelling The speediest Soarding of Land How to make thy Drayn to drain a Bog to purpose Where water lyeth in Rushy Land The matter that feeds the Bog where that lyeth Every Bog hath most certainly a living Spring within it Shewing how every Drayn must â—e carried up from the lowest levell Shallow Trench reprehended The most sure way to destroy a Bog The prejudice by crooks and angles in water courses How to make Draynes without any prejudice to any sheep or bâ—ast The best way of preventing danger to Cattell in Drayning Fens and Marshes recoâ—ery Floring best destroyes a Beg. The probable occasion or first cause of Bogginess Ob. These are but pretences Ans. 1. Watering breeds the Rush. Ans. Especiall season for watering Land Iob 8. 12. Ans. 2. A sign when Land begins to fatten Obj. Many have done great things herein and alway to no purpose Mountebanck Engineers projections Mysterious Engines repâ—â—â—ved Object Answ. Object Answ. Marsh Lands The first Fendrayne's or Levellers highly to be honoured Invention far harder than an Addition to it Cutting water-courses strait no small aâ—vantage Many thousands of acres recoverable wiâ—h little charge to manifold advantage Some Mils destroy more than they are worth To prevent corrupting land by a Mildam as much as may be What Fen-Drayning is not What perfect Drayning is indeed How to know when Land is firmly Drayned The just Form or Modell of the Fen-lands How the Commoner is a hindrance to Fen-drayning How Undertakers may be a prejudice to the work Queries in Fen-drayning Reasons why the land floods would be best taken oâ—â— on the outside the Fen. Some particular â—ands may be drayned of themselves though the generall be not All such-Lands are most feciblâ— to be drayned Water Engins helpfull in 〈◊〉 These more difficult and yet fecible A new World may best admit of new Husbandry Denshiâ—ing Fen lands very usefull Denshiring lands reproved in the West Burning Land extolled in the North. Lands drowned by the Sea A Good Overseer worth Gold Tooles belonging to floating and Trenching to make the work more easie and less châ—rgable A good Line A Water-Levell Sir Edward Peto his Level The manner and form of a true and the speediest Level that I can devise Who are the makers of it The Trenching Plough Turving Spade The paring Spade The use of the Paring Spade 1 Extreme 2 Extreme Enclosure held forth without Depopulation The grandest evill of a just and equall Inclosure prevents Idleness and Oppression onely Enclosure prevents the Rot of sheep exceedingly Inclosure may occasion more work done at an easier charge Lands capable of enclosure Cottier provided for Labourer provided for Minister provided for Tithes not Gospell wayes maintenance 1. Tit. 8. Depopulation reproved Impropiations to be thought of Free-holder Lord of the Soyl or Landlord How Inclosure shall not prejudice the increase of Corn or food Four arguments to prove the advantage by Enclosure and that more Corn may be raised being Inclosed than Common One Acre brings forth as much Corn as three Tillage great profit Onely Right in Commons not Vsurpers I speak to At the first Enclosing of any Common how to cast out Land to the greatest Advance Tow Advantages of this Enclosure Cavils against Improvement in Common A
President of great store of lost Land under puddle hill capable of Improvement An offer made once to have made good the same 2 Advantage of this Enclosure III husbandry discovered along the River Thames both wayes much barren Land near London 109. p. 160. See Mr. Hartlip his legacy page 56. A second sort of Coarser Land the only Land for Plowing The middle sort of Clay strong Land advanceth it self by Tillage The warm lighter Land advanceth most in Corn to the Commonnwealth How to bank Ant-hills most speedily The best way to destroy Rush or coldness in any Pasture Moderate Tillage must needs advance â—and Advance for Plowing and the old Rent the first year after An offer made of making good a Lease after Plowing of old Rent and a great advance in Plowing Stratford upon Avon President Thâ— manner how to Plow such Lâ—nds Mow the Rushes Especiall directions for plowing Experiment of Plowing the second sort of Land and the fruits of it A President of the fruit that came of poor Lands worth but nine shillings an Acre To lay open Furrows clear is very good What Hardness and Harrowing is most advantagious Overâ—plow cryed down and reproved Reasons why but three or four yeares are prescribed for Plowing old Pasture Land neither more nor less Last Crop may yeeld most Corn but worst for the Land To lay down Land upon the Wheat or Rie Stubble is best and the reasons of it The way of Sowing Land to be left after to Grass Dung laid upon the new fresh Turf works wonders When one Load of Manure will go as far as two or three Prov. 12. 11. Prov. 28. 10. Prov. 13. 23. Prov. 11. 16. Prov. 13. 23. Richst â—or â— of Land Destruction of the best Land is by over-plowing Mowing Land a great Impoverishing Moderate Plowing better than unlimited Mowing Plowing left indifferent upon the Richest Lands Divisions of Land advanceth Small Divisions reproved Plowing the onely Cure of VVeeds Plowing the only Cure against Mossiness Rush Coldness Object Against timely Soarding Ans. 2. Plowing some Land must be used as a Medicine â—oâ— as a Calling VVhat Land it is that may Soard as well the first year to as much profit as before A President of Wheat stubble its speed so Soarding Object Ans. A president of fattest Mutton on the newest 〈◊〉 Object Ans. Rotting Sheep in new Pastures well ordered may be rate To prevent Rotting in new Tilled Pastures Separations and raising of Quick-set Hedges a greâ—t advancement Hedg rowes a thing of delight and credit Reasons why Quick-setting thrives no 〈◊〉 Hedg rows a great help for Firing and Timber Not preserving Quick-sets when planted is ruin to good Husbandry Usuall wayes to kill the Rush Flag or Mare'-blab Drayning the most naturall way Much Trenching reproved How to find the matter that â—eed the Rush Flag How to drain Land well where there is no end of Trenching The causes of Moals increasing VVant of a Law for killiâ—g of Moales a great mischief Pot-Tâ—â—p chief Engine in Moal Destruction Destroying the nests destroyes multitudes of them VVater best to destroy Moals Ant-hills Destruction Object Ans. Ant-Hills good to destroy Sheep or Beasts How to bank Ant Hills most speedily Why to lay them lower than the Surface of the Earth Sow-thistle a great annoyance Easiest way to destroy the Sow-thistle Goose Tansey Feâ—rn howâ—o destroy The reason of Fearns dying Easiest way to destroy Broom Excellentest way to destroy Broom Goss Ling and Braking When one load of Soyl doth as much good as two or three An unsailing way of destroying any filth Planting Fruit-trees in hedges is good husbandry Chief piece in Planting all fruits Best Earth discovered How to reap two Harvests An unfailing way to preserve Corn from Blasting The most usuall naturall help A good help to preserve Corn pure To preserve Corn from Fowls and Vermine An unfailing Prevention of Crows Rooks or Daws from Corn. The Reason of the Crows offence taken The fuller Description of the Persian VVheel Improvement of Up-Land several waies President of Plowing Wood-Land Land A Husband-mans old principle Wood-Land Lands Tilled every ten yeares yea some every eight Means or Materials to in-rich Land Liming of Land Object Ans. Presidents for Liming The Land most naturall for Lime The nature of Lime quite contrary to the common opinion How much wil Lime an Acre Marl. Nature of Marl. Signs of good Marl described Slipperâ—ress no infallible sâ—gn A Marling Experiment Some Mucked some Folded some Mâ—râ—ed One no cost at all A double Experiment Marl saddens Land exceedingly Extremes is Marling reproved How to lay down Land to graze after Marling The Prime Principle in Husbandry Land most naturall for Marl. Sand. Of no worth or use at all Sand from the Land-flood are good What Lands are naturall for Sands Pest Sand of all What causeth so much richness in the Sea Sands The Seas fruitfulness by Fish Sea Weeds very good soyl for Land Urine frâ—itful The richness of Snayl Cod. Where the right Snayl is to be got The chief River whereâ—n this Mud lyeth comes from-ward Vxbridge by Cole-brook and is not the Thames as I can yet discover having made a Journy thither since I wrote the aforesaid discourse Mud in Rivers of great use Bacons Naturall History pag. 123. Chalk Chalk mixed most certain Mud. Ingenuity not of such esteem as a base Outlandish fashion Earth covered with any house or baâ—n is rich Pidgeons and Poultry dung little less inferiour Horses well corned make best dung Swines dung most excellent soyl The great account of swines dung The usage of their Swine and the making of the Hogyard How to feed Swin without any cornish meat Raggâ— VVoo's Marrowbone Beef Broaâ—h Sheeps-Dung How with great ease to raise rich dung Horse Dungs Excellency A great mistake in letting soyl be uncovered How to lose none of the least benefit in mucking any Land notwithstanding Land-floods Some lose no Laâ—d flood at all Vrine of mankind usefull for Lands Ashes Soot Best Manure for Gardens Stubbâ—e or Straw Salts effect How much Liming Corn or watering Corn advanceth it Oyl the fruit thereof Leaves of Tâ—eâ—â— Fearn or Rushes will make soyl The most naturall Land to plant with Wood. How to cast our thy Wood-plots for pleasure Method and conâ—usion to thee bring of an equal price and probably be the cheaper How to cast out thy plot into most delightfull divisions Planting Strawberyes is excellent How to get thy seâ—s for planting The quickest growing wood What Sets are best How to plant thy Sets How to make thy Dike to Plant thy Sets in How to plant thy Quick and mould them also Object Ans. 1. Ans. 2. 2. A President of Wood planted that one Acre was worth 60. at 11 years growth What an Acre costs plenting Object Ans. 1. Ans. 2. No Observation of the Moon Eccl. 11. 4 5 6. Weeding most necessary boggy-Boggy-Land will bring forth a Plantation of Wood. What one Acre of
Willow Planted on Boggy Lands may be worth How to thick Woods that grow too thiâ— A president of a wood thickned Elm plants Sicamore plants Land as well imployed by planting wood as any way A president of 50. years growth of Ash. Oak plants A president for Nurseries of Wood. How to plant for Timber Open loose land the best for any wood An Oak above 40 yards in Timber Another ten yards thicknes Beech wood the use and fruit The Elm described How to raise Elm-plants The use of the Elm. The description of the Ash. The use of the Ash. Season for the Ash its selling A president of Ash his growth and advantage The best sets c. The best time to remove Ash. Birch The Walnuts The use and advantage of it The Willow Osier his use and how planted The Lime tree Causes why the Reader digest not the Discourse The Autâ—ors promise to mend The author clear his endeavours are for publique good His book is but to draw thee to his chamber to tel thy fortune there Seed described Right seed is the best peece in the whole work Claver sowed but none came up The best is of our own growing I have heard of one that got above 2 bushels out of an Acre A new way of getting out the Clover forth of the husk Best time to sow Claver To know when t is full ripe When and how to get one the seed Yeelds much Milk and feeds fat Beef A great mistake about Claver Old land better for Claver than tillable How much seed soweâ—han Acre The lands most proper for the Clover A generall rule in Clavering The Annuall profit of Clover Grass Clover â—i's for corning and corning for clovering The description of St. Foyn The manner of sowing it La lucern Plough irons made very true The remedies of the ploughs abuses A description of the plain share The Coulter how best made The Dutch Coulter The best way for the tryall of a new plough Plough well clouted and irons sharp smooth kept Size your Horses or Oxen equal A good character of a good Plough-man Plough-beam Wheel plows described Plough-sheath Plough head The Turn-wrest plough The single wheel plough A president of land plowed for 5 s. an Acre plough and horses found The dutch coulter is appliable to any pure clean land The onely advantages for making the easiest going plough The description of the plain plough The benefit of a broad and short Wrest What ease and advantage this plough and the directions will afford The season of plowing for summer corn The season for plowing for winter corn A foot described as will go in hillaâ—ground A plow to cast down land A plow to set up land The particular use of many of the members of the wel regulated plough How to plow as it may yeild most mould How to plow as your lay your land most level How to set the double plough together The plough wiâ—h a harrow affixed Plough harrow seedsman and all in one ploughâ—o work all at one time The lasting plough that may endure many yeares Welde described The manner of sowing it at no cost How much soweth au acre When ripe How to use it What Improvement welde yeildeâ—h The best Land for Woad Pest known parts for Woad What price men will give for good Woad-land Woad prepares exceeding well for Corn The best Corn. How ploughed How much soweth an Acre What is costs an Acre weeding The joyce of the Woad must by carefully preserved Five or six Crops in one year of Woad Season for sowing VVoad When Woad is ripe The best Woad for use The way of seasonidg Woad How hot the Woad arise unâ—o in the couch The advantage of VVoâ—d what it yeelds an Acre The description of Madder The seasons of drawing the sets What ground is best and how to prepare it A rod of ground what worth setting At what distance and how to set them When to get sets of our own planting Madder planting formerly granâ—ee by Patent At Dedford by Greenwich is his Plantation Best Hop-land How a hop-garden should stand Best hop-sets and where to have them Signs of an unproveable hop How to make the hop-hills The very time to plant in The best manner of setting the sets How to pole them which poles are best Poles length The best sort of poling And spediest way And best season How to draw broken hop-poles How to lay the poles How to turne the hops to the pole One of the main things in the hop-yard is raising the hils At first suppress not one science How to heighten your hils When to break off the top of the hop bind When hops blow and bell and are ripe How to pull your hops Neatness about them is very good How to dress pruin the roots in Winter The charge of seâ—ting dressing hops How to dry hops The sign when they are dry enough The profits may be made of hops Best time for Saffron How to set Saffron Saffron as green as a leek all Winte How to pick Saffron How to dry Saffron The Saffron Country The best land for Liquorish The charge of workmanship Price of sets The place where best lands lye for this use How to set your Plants If dry water â—your sets Time of planting The Runuer yeelds good sets When taken up and when sold. The advantages thereof Best seed Time of sowing How much seed sowed upon an Acre When to cut it How to use it How much an Acre may bear The charge of an Acre A design to set all poore to workâ— and wel maintain them How to know the best hempseed Best hemp-hemp-land The quantity the time of sowing of it It must be fenced Times of getting it How much the statute requires in a bundle What seed is worth The best land for Hempe Fitâ—est flaex Land 3. l. given for slax Land The several persons that slax imployes How to raise the best flaxe Best flax seed An experiment of both sorts of seed The season for sowing flax The manner of watering of it The charge of the flax from the beginning till it come to the Market The flax and Hempe-trade not come to perfection What parts prove the improvements What Nurceries of young Trees may improve How land is improved to twentyfold by Orcharding One land may improve as wel as another Very much land may improve as well as that which is improved Object Answer 2. The natured lands upon which the chiefestfruits doe grow Answ. 3. Lands of the same nature may raise the same improvement Object The climate but a very smal hindrance Sloth and ignorance the greatest hindrance of improvement That Wines may be made in England feasibly Charges and hazards in gardening cuts the comb of its greatest hopes How Turnepâ— will help out the improvement though Markets fail How Turnep makes bread in a dear year How Hogs may be kept and fed with Turneps What Turnep seed sowes an Acre and how to order it throughout