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
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
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
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-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
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
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
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
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
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
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
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
it is of excellent fruitfulness and so all Wales-ward borders so rich as that they carry it many miles on Horse-back unto their Lands and make such vast Improvements as to raising Corn and Grass also as is incredulous Now were it on the Northern Eastern or Western Coasts as rich as it is upon the Southern Coast as it may be for any contrary experience I have had I could not believe the people to be so Dronish as they are in some parts thereof but that they would Drain out that Sweetness to their Lands as would cost but little or nothing but their Labour However I must absolutely say there must needs be great heart and fruitfulness in these Sands also because the Richness of the Sands is from the fat or filth the Sea doth gather in by all Land-floods and Streames that bring it from the Lands and also what the Tide fetches in dayly from the Shores and from that fat and brackish nature in it self and from the Fish and other creatures and thousands of other matters that putrifie in the Sea all which the waters Casts to Shore and purgeth forth of it self and leaves in the Sands thereof while it self is clear and pure And now being discoursing thereof give me leave to let you know the vertue and excellency the Sea may yeeld as from Sea-Weeds also which Cornwell and Devonshire and many other parts make great Improvement of for the Soyling and Manuring of their Land and that to very great advantage also and further toward the Inriching of the Land as from Fish of any sort which is so fruitfull for the Land that in many parts of the world they Dung their Lands therewith but here with us it yeelding more Advantage for Food to the relief of mans nature than unto the Earth I 'll say no more unless any Capacity fall in the dead of putrified Fish which is no other use than to this purpose A good Advantage might be made unto the Land thereof as I said before any Liquid Brackish-fat Greasie-matter and any thing that comes from or is the fleshy matter of the creature whether it be by Sea or Land hath a secret operation in it to the Earths fruitfulness Yea the very Urine of man is very excellent and of all beasts very fruitfull and very rich would be of more Accompt if men knew the worth of it I have read of some that have done too strange things therewith to report but most certainly 't is worth labour to preserve it with most exactness There is yet another Opportunity out of many of your great Rivers and is from a Mud or Sludg that lyeth frequently in deep Rivers which is very soft full of Eyes and Wrinckles and little Shels which is very rich yea so rich that in some parts many men get gallant Livings onely by taking it up out of the Rivers and selling it again by the Load One sort whereof they sell for one shilling two pence per Load and another sort they sell for two shillings four pence a Load at the Rivers side which men fetch twenty Miles an end for the Inriching of their Land for Corn and Grass One Load going as far as three Load of the best Horse or Cow-dung that can be made They call it Snayl-Cod and it hath in it many Snayles and Sheâ—s which is conceived occasioneth the Fatness of it The great Experience of this Piece is made upon that part of the River Thames which runs from Oxford and Reading down to Brainford and if my information fail not which I conceive I have from as good a hand a Gentleman full of great Experiences in Husbandry Improvements as hath not many Fellowes The Lord Cottington drawing part of the River through his Park at Hanworth hath cut in the same River many Out-lets or Ponds somewhat deeper than the River on purpose to receive the same from out of which is usually taken up great store of Mud for the Advance of the Upper Lands but whether this be that richest Snayl-Cod I cannot say but beleive it is very good but upwards as high as Cole-Brook in that River it lyeth plentifully all which not failing under mine own Experience I can say little more unto for present neither for the seasons of applying it unto the Land nor the manner of working the Land to it I dare not prescribe Only hence I conclude there may as well be the same opportunity in most Rivers of the Nation which is a most unutterable Advantage But I can say there is in most if not in all Rivers a very good Rich Mud of great Fruitfulness which were it more sought after would work on more Experiments and produce Advantage unexpected it costing nothing but labour getting nor prejudiceth any but profit to all by clearing the Rivers and great worth and vertue it must needs have in it being the Soyl of the Pastures and Fields common Streets Wayes Yards and Dung-hils all collected by the Flood and drawn thither where it concenters into Shelves and Mines as I may so call it and remanines for ever as an undiscovered Advantage where no use is made of it but hereof more if God give opportunity to the Author of Experimenting both this and others of the same nature to the utmost Advancement of it otherwise and in the mean while inquire it out they self CHAP. XXIII Treateth of the use and nature of Chalk Mud of Pooles Pidgeons and Swines Dung and other Soyles and Manures therein contained AS for Chalk Sir Francis Bacon affirms it to be of an over-heating nature to the Land and is best for Cold Moyst Land but as it appears to me in Hartfordshire and other parts thereabout there are great Improvements to be made upon Barren Gravelly Flinty Lands it hath great Fruitfulness in it but not having faln under my own Experience I dare affirm little therein onely advise any that have opportunity therein to be well resolved of the Fruitfulness of the said Chalk or of the nature of the said Lands for there is some Chalk though not very much thereof that is of so churlish a binding nature that it will so sodder and bind and hold the Water upon the top of the Earth so long till it destroy the Corn nor work a sterility in the Earth that neither Corn or Ground shall yeeld but little fruit but there is a Chalk in thousand places of great fruitfulness for Improvement And I also conceive that Chalk Earth and Manure mixed together makes an admirable sure and naturall fruitfull composition for almost any sort of Lands and is a very Excellent Unfallible Remedy against Barrenness and raiseth Corn in abundance inricheth it also for Grazing when you lay it down many great Countries in this Nation are under this capacity Also the Mud of old standing Pooles and Ditches the shovelling of Streets and Yards and Highwaies the Overâ—warths of Common Lanes
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
and first inquire and search about the Country for Set-gatherers such as will bring them every two days fresh for the fresh gathering sudden setting of them in their places is of more Advantage to the furtherance of the growth than thou Imaginest Secondly prepare such Servants here as will not deceive thee And avoid the getting of Eaten Bitten Rough and Brushy all being unproveable sets receive them not but give them such wages as they may afford to get such as are fruitfull and proveable and if possible get them from off as hard Land as thou Plantest them upon however be sure they be thriving smooth Rooted or smooth Barked sets of what sort soever they be as straight as possibly thou canst procure Thirdly for the severall sorts of Wood quickest in rising and growing generally are your soft Woods as Poplar Willows Asp Sicamores Maples Witchazell c. your Ash is a gallant thriving Wood also and indeed for quickness and profit too it is the best in my opinion some good Oak set will do very well and Elm also towards your outsides but if thou resolvest to be a Planter to purpose then thou must be a sower of all Seeds of the severall Woods aforesaid or setter of many Sciens and a Breeder up of Nuâ—ceries continually for indeed were Planting more in fashion Sets would prove very scarce which now for present are plentifull enoâ—gh and in most part of the Nation may be had for two shillings or two shillings six pence a thousand some more some less according to the goodness and bigness of them and dearness of the Country for workmens wages indeed the lesser the sets the more certain of growing but the bigger they are the fatter and sooner they rise to their growth only some of them may fail Fourthly having prepared thy Sets then set to Planting of them which I advise after this manner All thy Borders made or but cast out thy Sets must be all Planted in the same way as thou wouldst Plant or as usually men do Plant a Thorn hedge First cast up by a Line a little Ditch about two foot and half or three Foot broad just so deep and but a little deeper than thou canst take up good mould and so as all Labourers begin their turning Turfdo thou and then lay up a little mould and there lay thy first Row of Sets some say three Sets in each Foot but I conceive if thy Sets be good two may do very well then cover them Secondly raise another Border about nine Inches above that thy Mould or Bank layed well ashore or sloaping and there plant another Row and cover them well also as men do their second Row of Quick-sets Therdly cast up another Dike against that like a double Dike so as both may meet together upon the Top and lye close together and then plant two Rows more of Quick as was directed on the other side and if thou hast any quantity of space betwixt thy two upper Rows of Quick thou maist plant one Row upon the Top or two if thou seest cause if thou hast room to spare And so thou must go on throughout thy whole Plantation a Dike and a Land or Bank and again another Dike and a Land and so throughout And be sure however thou do to plant all thy Sets in the over-most best Mould or Earth that thy Sets may neither root in stiffe-binding Clay nor hungry Sand and fear not leave no Land undigged or unwrought nor plant none in Green-soard by no meanes 'T is a simple Piece I confess to make good the issue promised but when thou hast proved the truth of it then thou shalt be better able to judge of it Many Objections wil be raised against it but let not the simplicity thereof offend thee for I shall assure thee I will give thee such a President before I have done and leave the thing so clear that there shall not be left the least cause of Suspition CHAP. XXV Answereth severall Objections against this Projection and gives a President for making good the same THat you will lay your Land so dry and deprive your Sets of all Moysture that it is Impossible they should grow at all especially in dry sandy or gravelly Land much less to grow to such an Increase as is promised Hath two branches First all Sets and Plants for the most part require Soundness and warmness and were many of our Spring Woods more dry and warm they would prosper much the better although much dry haskey sandy hungry Land doth not many times afford a thick Coppice or good Spring which is especially occasioned by reasoÌ„ of the Barrenness of the Land and the ill Husbandring of the Spring after falling not Preserving of it from Cattells brusing of it as wil appear more fully before this discourse be ended But secondly Experience shews the same that upon a sandy gravell Land all the aforesaid Woods prosper exceedingly in the way of the aforesaid Planting in so much that should I tell you the Experience thereof you would a little wonder at it A new Erection planted twelve yeares sithence at the Eleventh years end a Fall was made so much VVood cut upon the same as was worth or sold for sixty pounds an Acre or more it was much Pole-wood yea a good part of it made Spars and some part of it small building Timber that a Gentleman of that County builded himself part of a very good Barn the whole Roof of it with that Timber and this year was another Sale of Eleaven years growth of as good a Value the Land it was planted on was worth about ten shillings per Acre and every Acre cost somwhat under seven pound an Acre al Digging Quick-sets and all charges in the Planting of it And the second Crop they make accompt will be as good at eight years growth And to me it seems possible it may if not better This President is at Billing at the Earl of Thomunds in Northamptonshire managed by a most Ingenuous Gentleman called Mr. Cartwright This way of Planting will certainly be so thick that they cannot prosper one by another or else it is Impossible the Earth should yeeld Fruit Heart or Sap to so thick a Plantation Your Spring-woods in some parts of them grow as thick especially where your old Roots grow so thick as you can scarce set one foot betwixt them and every Root may send forth twenty or forty Spineyes and yet all nourished from the Earth these Stools they grow upon also Secondly I answer that Experience hath also made it good as aforsaid For other Planters in these parts Planted a foot or more asunder and yet came not near this nor is neither half so much in quantity Nor yet the other thinner Plantation although little or never the whit the bigger or taller than this which is so thick Planted nor never worth
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-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
fortune without prejudice or dishonour may contrive to himself five hundred pounds per annum Himself exceedingly wants such a discovery or else wants the reasonable capacity he speaks of for sure the fortune he speaks of he cannot want being a man of so vast a mind large understanding and great experienee unless his experiences have eaten away the rest which to me seems unprobable unless they be to be found visible These things are gallant in contemplation but more sadly experimented which you will hardly find by sea or land nor any other place but in Mr. Speeds chamber I beleeve He tels us by his fourth Item that with less than fifty pounds stock visible a man may advance a thousand pounds per annum but I fear either the invisible must be ten thousand pounds or else his thousand pound will drop short by nine hundred and eighty and if you grant him credence or that there were a possibility in him ever to affect it why should any man so much abuse himself as to make use of his following Item which is two hundred pounds stock in three yeares to raise four hundred pounds and in three more double the four hundred pounds c. The which he affirms but in probability and yet the other upon certainty but that of probability may be and is most evidently experimented was by may thousands before Mr. Speed was born but why any man should lay out two hundred pounds when with fifty pounds he may raise a hundred and sixty times as much therewith I wonder far greater than those he holds forth in points of Husbandry as to advance land two hundred fold from five shillings to fifty pounds per annum c. and many more in all which I shall say no more but refer thee to his Book and his personall Discoveries for I must and will lay him down the Gantlet For there is enough to advance ths Common-wealth if not to choak it for many times when men are brought extreme low either by sickness or penury and restored as this Common-wealth is suddenly to plenty or a good stomach surfe it and undoe themselves suddenlier with plenty than by a sparer dyet or a more moderate condition and so I fear may this Nation if they embrace so high discoveries too hastily yet embrace them I pray but with sobriety and remember him also that ran mad upon the beholding of his great Treasure for such variety of Extraordinaries may make men wild and run from one to another not knowing where to close or stay and the gazing after these Princely Incomes if they look after it till effected may make them look their eyes out also but enough hereof Yet let me lament the sad condition of our Times and I fear the neglect of our Government too for to very many members thereof if not to all he hath given his Bookes whose fault with humble submission it is that so great discoveries should still be clouded and yet not put in practice and the Common-wealth thus bleeding while either by a Patent or rather and that I am sure for the value of one or two dayes pay at most of a common Clerk in some Offices would effect it for truly the man is very conscionable and desires not a full condition but chuseth a very mean one and wil accept of too little in all conscience for his discoveries I know to whom hee made many of them and would have done all the rest for less than twenty shillings if the mans patience would have received them but most like he not being able to bear them neglected the embracing of thē And whether I have and shall speak forth any of the things he mean I will not be peremptory but beleeve I haue and shall most of them if opportunity last but shall never endeavour to hold them forth in that Luciferous yet watery lustre lest it blind my Reader but truly and nakedly to discover them their nature and use with that reall and feacible advantage may be made thereof which will satisfie a sober spirit and if by chance I make a discovery of what is concealed much good may it doe the Common-wealth for I shall reap the fruit of my design An opportunity to discover publique Advantages And whosoever desires cordially to be informed of Mr. Speed may from Mr. Samuel Hartlib dwelling against Charing-Cross who can give fuller and larger description both of the man and his abilities having expressed him self so far a Gentleman of such charity towards him as he hath maintained him divers monoths together while he was inventing some of these his discoveries as I was informed from a very knowing Information And now to the six Peeces of Improvement contained in the ensuing discourse held forth under these Heads 1 By sowing the Trefoyl or Claver and St. Foyne and the advantages hereby 2 By facilitating the great charge and burthen of the Plough with the figures of them 3 The planting of Weld Woad and Madder three great dying commodities 4 The planting of hops Safforn and Liquorish and the profits thereof 5 The planting of Rape Cole see◠Hemp and Flax and their Increase 6 The Improvements that may be made by some Orchard and Garden fruits CHAP. XXVI Contains the best way of planting Trefoyle or great Claver Grass which is the highest advantage our English Lands will produce And herein I will discover the best seed and the best means to gain it how to sow and husbandry it for food and seed with the most suitable land thereto and the profit that may accrew thereby and for brevity sake shall speak little to what other publique spirits have discovered but enlarge a little from later experience in relation to our English Lands and Husbandry THere are so many sorts of Claver as would fill a volume I shall onely speak of the great Claver or Trefoyl we fetch from Flaunders called by Clusius Trifolliummajus tertium which bares the great red Honysuckle whose leaf and branches far exceeds our naturall Meadow Claver it bears a very small seed as Mustard seed not so round but longer like a Bean the best is of a greenish yellow colour some a little reddish but the black I fear will not doe well The choice whereof is the onely peece in the whole work Your Dutch Holland or Low Country Seed or from the lower parts of Germany is very much of it very hazardous that comes over hither but being well chose there the tansporting of it by sea is no considerable prejudice unto it but much that is sold in the Seed-mens shops in London was either corrupted by the Dutch before it came thence or else parched by over-drying or else by the Shop-keepers either mingling old and new or keeping it another year and then selling it for new I my self within this four year sowed divers Acres with seed bought in London which cost me about two shilllings a pound and lost it all
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
with two Teems two horses and one man to one plough and two horses and one man together in the morning one man to shift them at noon and meat and gear them and then he brought in two Teem in the afternoon two horses in a Teem with the same men and so plowed as aforesaid his eight acres I saw the ground thus plowed the poor man got his three shilling and four pence for his men and himself that is ten-pence a day a man which is good wages in Norfolk It is a wonder that we should be so slothfull when some are so ingenious As for the Dutch plough I have also considered which exceedingly differs from our severall fashioned Ploughs therefore I shall not give you the large description thereof because as it is the pure Dutch plough it is only applyable to Fen ond Marsh-land where there is neither stone nor root nor hard place and the chiefest advantage it hath to east and expedition is in the breadth and sharpness of the share which is made about a foot and a half broad some more and sharp in the point and as thin in the phin as a knife and wrought most curious a good share being worth above twenty shillings which casts up a very grear broad Furrow very clean and easie as is possible out of which I have contracted as much there-from in the description of my Share as I can possibly allow to our uncertain changeable Land to advance the ease which many times alters the temper and strength twice or thrice in one land And then for the Coulter that is also especially applyable to the aforesaid Land but may be used upon any fair pure lay turf being old pasture And thus I have given you the description leave it to thy imitation a good one will cost a mark or fifteen shillings onely say you can hardly have a Smith in the country to work well upon it and far worse upon the share but as to the bastard Dutch which is somewhat nearer appliable to our Lands I have taken from it as much as it will afford me both in the cast of the Shield-board which is very good as also in all the other parts of it and do apply it to the plough hereafter described and shall ingeniously acknowledge I have some branch from every of these roots and from the Norfolk plough and one wheeled plough also from all which I find that the shorter and lesser any plough is made having its true pitch with its true cast on the Shield-board and short Wrest and sharp irons the far easier Of all which having so seriously considered made and tryed them almost every one upon severall sorts of Land and experimented them to the full with my own hands to my great expence shall descend unto my third General head for easing the plough CHAP. XXXI Thereby to demonstrate wherein the chief ease of the Plough consists with the easiest going Plough and the advantages gained thereby I Shall not with the least disparagement to any of them giving them their due praise and honor draw forth a description of the most easie-going Plough I can contract it to the least charge is possible having all these helps and lights and to add nothing thereto were a shame to an ingenious man I will therefore take a short beam deeper one way than another of a tough and dry young Ash betwixt five foot and six foot long rising in the Coulter-hole and strong there but thence declining both wayes for strength and so growing smaller wrought round and smooth my Sheath most exactly fitted into the beam and pitched pretty forward and driven up so close with a little lace or bragget put behind the Sheath into the beam and Sheath just butting at both ends when the Sheath is driven up which shall stand as a Buttress to support it and may be as serviceable as an Iron dog as many use my nearer Handle put upon a Tennant through the same and drawn close with two or three wooden pins and then both sheath and handle tennanted exceeding close into the head being about two foot long not standing upright nor level but beam-handle and sheath hanging from a perpendicular point one fifth or sixth part to the Land on the nearer hand my Furrow-handle with two good round staves planted on my Land-handle as wide in the ends as a man can hold them being very long and wel compassed and fairly wrought my share formerly described pitched true upon my head and drawn up with an iron bolt through head and pan into my beam and cottered up my share standing rather more hanging than the head doth so close and true as that water cannot pierce betwixt them either with a Coumb weelded on rightly compassed laid into my sheild-board placed as high as the earth works up and as smooth as may be to the end my breast not being too thick at the nose nor widening too suddenly and as soon as the earth comes to the middle my Shield-board to widen whelm or compass as if it would lie upon the furrow and so to widen and whelm more and more unto the very end or else a shiner planted upon my share most close wrought compassed and nayled to the sheild-board in the form before prescribed My Wrest a large hand breadth planted under my sheild-board bottom and narrower than it and rather yet narrower to the sheild-board end so that it retain the just and full breadth of my furrow and no broader it both goes easier and helps the cast of the furrow I desire it be well plated too but shorter by five or six inches than my sheild-board and by two inches than my Plough-head my whole Plough boarded up so close as no earth may get into it and plated very well and smooth in every wearing place whatsoevor As for the pitch both in breadth and depth that must be resolved both from the height you make your Plough if high in the chest your pitch must be the deeper about eleven or twelve inches or about ten or eleven and a half if to go single you must pitch it broader if to go double narrower Every common Plough-wright can help you here also understand what is here dirrcted my irons kept both hard and sharp in points and Phin and this plough being once well scoured and clean if it go not with as much ease as nature doth admit or Art hath hitherto discovered I will acknowledgemy mistake but what strength may draw it I shall not determine I have told you what hath doth draw the other ploughs before described and could you shew me all the Lands and all the temperatures at all seasons of those Lands I could easily demonstrate that but to me it is sâ—fficient if that I have both rationally and experimently discovered to thee the best plough easiest that I know or have read of in the world as I have cordially don and
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
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-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 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
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
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
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
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-Land will bring forth a Plantation of Wood. What one Acre of