Of Whirlwinds 297 Of the Rainbow 298 Of Noise and stilness in the Air id Of Thunder and Lightening id Of the rarity and density of the Air id Of the Weatherglass or Thermometry 299 Of the Baroscope 301 Sect. 2. Of Observations and Prognosticks taken from the Earth and Water 302 Of the Earth id Of the Water id Of the Sea id Sect. 3. Of Observations and Prognosticks taken from Beasts 303 Of Beeves or Kine id Of Sheep id Of Kids id Of Asses id Of Dogs id Of Cats id Of Mice and Rats id Of Swine 304 Sect. 4. Of Observations and Prognosticks taken from Fowl id Of Water-fowl id Of Land-fowl id Of the Heron id Of the Kite 305 Of the Crow c. id Of Sparrows id Of the Jay id Of Bats id Of the Owl id Of the Woodlark id Of the Swallow id Of the Cock id Sect. 5. Of Observations and Prognosticks taken from Fishes and Insects id Of Sea-fish id Of Fresh-water Fish id Of Frogs id Of Snakes id Of Ants id Of Bees id Of Gnats Flies and Fleas id Of Spiders 306 Of Chaffers c. id Sect. 6. Promiscuous Observations Prognosticks id Of Trees and Vegetables id Of Fire id Signes of Rain 307 Signes of Snow id CHAP. XV. Dictionarium Rusticum 312 CHAP. I. Of Husbandry and Improvements in general plainly discovering the Nature Reasons and Causes of Improvements and the Growth of Vegetables c. AGriculture hath been not undeservedly esteemed What Agriculture is a Science that principally teacheth us the Nature and divers Properties and Qualities as well of the several Soils Earths and Places as of the several Productions or Creatures whether Vegetable Animal or Mineral that either naturally proceed or are artificially produced from or else maintained by the Earth Agricultura est Scientia docens quae sunt in unoquoque Agro serunda faciunda quae terra maximos perpetuo proventus ferat saith Varro The Judicious and Understanding Husbandman must first consider Of the Subject whereon the Husband man bestows his labor the Subject whereon to spend his Time Cost and Labor viz. the Earth or Ground which we usually term either Meadow Arable Pasture Woodland Orchard or Garden-ground then whether it be more Commodious or Profitable for Meadow for Pasture or for Woods which in most places are naturally produced to the great advantage of the Husbandman or with what particular Species of Grain Pulse Trees Fruits or other Vegetables it is best to Plant or Sowe the same to his greatest benefit And with what Beasts Fowl or other Animals to Stock his Farm or other Lands Also he is to consider the best and most commodious way of Tilling Improving Propagating Planting and Manuring all such Meadows Arable and Pasture Pasture-Lands Woods Orchards and Gardens and the Reasons and Causes of such Improvements All which we shall endeavor to discover to the satisfaction and content of the diligent and laborious Husbandman But before we enter upon the particular Ways and Methods of Agriculture treated of in this ensuing Work we shall endeavor to unvail the secret Mysteries as they are commonly esteemed of the Productions and Increase of Vegetables after a plain and familiar Method not exceeding the Capacity of our Husbandmen whom this Treatise doth principally concern by the true knowledge whereof a gate is opened to Propagate Maturate or Advance the Growth or Worth of any Tree Plant Grain Fruit or Herb to the highest pitch Nature admits of This Globe of Earth that affords unto us the substance not only Of the Universal Spirit or Mercury of our selves but of all other Creatures Sublunary is impregnated with a Spirit most subtile and Ethereal as it were divinioris Aurae particula as the Learned Willis terms it which the Original De Fermentatione or Father of Nature hath placed in this World as the Instrument of Life and Motion of every thing This Spirit is that which incessantly administers unto every Animal its Generation Life Growth and Motion to every Vegetable its Original and Vegetation It is the Vehicle that carrieth with it the Sulphureous and Saline parts whereof the Matter Substance or Body of all Vegetables and Animals are formed or composed It is the Operator or Workman that transmutes by its active heat the Sulphureous and Saline parts of the Earth or Water into those varieties of Objects we daily behold or enjoy according to the different Seed or Matrix wherein it operates It continually perspires through the pores of the Earth carrying with it the Sulphureous and Saline parts the only treasure the Husband-man seeks for as hath been by some Ingenious Artists mechanically proved by receiving the same between the Vernal and Autumnal Equinoxes in an Alembick head where it hath condensed and copiously distilled into the Receiver at that season of the year the Earth then more liberally affording it than in the Winter-season which Spiritual Liquor so received is not a Treasure to be sleighted or neglected carrying with it the only Matter of Vegetables as the same Artists affirmed that having placed the same under a Melon-Glass near some Vegetable it was thereby wholly attracted externally and converted into that Vegetable they concluded also the same to be that Materia Prima quae absque omni sumptu labore molestia reperta est quam in aëre capere te oportet antequam ad terram perveniat c. This Liquor undoubtedly would be of singular Vertue and Effect in advancing and maturating the Growth of the more excellent Flowers or Curiosities being irrigated therewith It is easily obtained and that in great Quantities by such that think not a little time and labor lost to scrutine into the Mysteries of Nature But whether we obtain it singly or simply or not this we know that it is to be received by placing the more natural Receptacles the Seeds and Plants in the Earth which gives it us transmuted into such Forms and Substances as are most desired and necessary Although the Spirit or Mercury be that active and moving Of the Universal Sulphur part and that principally appears in the Generation or Conception of any Vegetable or Animal and is also the first that flies in the separation or dissolution of Bodies yet is it imbecile and defective without that most Excellent Rich and Sulphureous Principle which according to the description of the Learned Willis is De Fermentatione of a little thicker consistence than the Spirit and next unto it the most active for when any mixture or compound is separated the Spirits first fly then follow after the Sulphureous Particles The temperature of every thing so far as to the Heat Consistence and curious Texture thereof doth principally depend on Sulphur from hence every Plant Fruit and Flower receives those infinite varieties of Forms Colours Gusts Odours Signatures and Vertues it is that which is the proper Medium to unite the more
Volatile Mercury or Spirit to the more fixed Salt Spiritus Mediante Anima cum corpore conjungitur ligatur fit unum cum eis say the Philosophers This Sulphur or oyly part is easily separated and distinguish'd in Vegetables by the more curious it ariseth out of the earth with the aforesaid Mercury or Aqueous Spirit though not at the first discernable yet in every Plant more and more maturated and augmented by the Suns influence as the Seed or Matrix is more or less inclined to this Principle This is also that which gives to our hot and stinking Dungs Soils or Manures the Oleaginous pinguidity and Fertility and which begets that fiery heat which is in Vegetables as Hay Corn c. laid on heaps not throughly dry Not only the Duration of Individuals but also the Propagation Of the Universal Salt Willis de fermentatione of the Species dependeth much on the Principle of Salt for the Growth of Minerals the Fertility of Land the Vegetation or Growth of Plants and chiefly the fruitful Foetation and Progeny of Animals have their Original from their Saline Seed This Salt obscurely passeth with the Mercurial Spirit and the Sulphur and is associated therewith where ever that passes and where it finds a convenient Receptable Seed or Matrix it is more fixed than either the Sulphur or Spirit The Salt is that which gives to every Creature a Substance or Body without which neither the Spirit nor Sulphur could be reduced or coagulated into any Form It is in every thing Sal autem reperitur in rebus omnibus It is volatile when carried in the wings of the Spirit and Sulphur by the natural Fire or Motion But afterwards it is more fixed when separated from the Spirit or Mercury and Sulphur by artificial Fire as appears in the ashes or Caput Mortuum of all Vegetables Animals or Minerals distilled or burnt much also of the Sulphureous or Mercurial parts are coagulated by or transmuted into the Saline by natural or artificial Heat or Warmth as is evident in the Sea the nearer it is to the Equinoctial Line and the more it receives of the Perpendicular or direct Beams of the Sun the greater quantity of Salt it contains not only by the exhalation of the Aqueous or Phlegmatick parts but the Maturation Transmutation or Fixation of the more Volatile Spiritual and Sulphureous parts into the more Saline or fixed For in those hotter Climates the Land it self also is more Fertile through the abounding quantity of this Vegetating Salt as appears by the great plenty of Nitre or Sal terrae found in the hotter Climates lying on the Surface of the Earth in the morning like a hoary Frost when the Regions nearer the Poles having not those natural advantages of the Sun-beams in so high a degree are not so Fertile nor abound so much with Salt the most principal cause of Fertility But we will leave these Philosophical Principles as they are simply Of the true matter of Vegetables and apart very necessary to be known by those that Operate in the more-Secret Mystical and Mechanick Indagations of Nature and discourse only of that Universal Spirit or Vapor which daily and every moment perspires and proceeds out of every part of the Earth and is in every thing containing in it self the Spirit or Mercury the Sulphur and the Salt in one body united and without Art indivisible yet some one Part or Principle abounding more or less in every thing as the Water containeth more of the Spiritual or Aqueous part several Fruits Plants Flowers and Soils more of the Sulphureous and Barks of Trees Blood of Animals and several Minerals more of the Saline And wheresoever these Principles are most equally tempered or mixed there is most of Fertility as is evident in the several Natures Tempers and Qualities of Places for the Production or Propagation of Vegetables and wheresoever any or either of these Principles do over-much abound Vegetables are not produced as Waters or any other Liquors or Spirits are not Where Water or Spirits abound Fertile in themselves as to Vegetation unless they are either conjoyned with some other Substance or Matter or the more Phlegmatick parts evaporated and the remaining part maturated by the Sun or Air into an augmentation of the other Principles then is it capable of yielding naturally some sort of Vegetables For although several Plants set in Water only do emit fibrous roots and flourish therein for a time yet is it meerly an attraction of the most Saline and Sulphureous parts or Principles to its own relief as is evident by its better thriving if the Water be often changed At best this nourishment is but weak having so little of the Sulphur and Salt as the Withy Poplar and other Aquatick Plants demonstrate Therefore out of any sort of Waters only it is in vain to attempt any material or effectual increase of Vegetables other than that are naturally Aquatick because they contain a superaboundant Spirit or Moisture Therefore vain is the new received Opinion that Trees and other Vegetables and also other Minerals proceed from Water only But our Spiritus Mundi or Materia propinqua Vegetabilium although it appear in a Liquid form yet it contains actually an equal proportion of the three Principles And the more any Substance or Matter is impregnated or irrigated therewith the more prone or apt it is to Vegetation as Rain-water being animated with it by the continual Exhalations or Fumes ascending from the Earth and by it coagulated and detained is more prone to Vegetation than any other Waters as you may perceive by Plants watered therewith and by its sudden Generation of Animals and Vegetables in the Spring-time then the Earth more copiously breathing forth that Spiritus Mundi which returned again doth by the vivifying heat of the Sun easily transcend into another Species How soon will Horse-hairs receive life lying in rain-Rain-water but a few days in the heat of the Sun in the Spring-time whereof I have seen many in the High-ways after Rain in the Month of May very nimble and quick that had not yet lost their shape of a Horse-hair This is worthy our further enquiry to what Period this may be advanced it may also serve as an Index to point at several other Excellent Discoveries Neither is the more Sulphureous part or Principle of it self capable Where Fumes or Sulphur abounds of yielding Vegetables being of too hot and pinguid a Nature as the Dung of Animals and especially of Volatiles that eject no Urine whereby the more fiery and Sulphureous part of the others is diluted containing much of that pinguidity produce no Vegetables of it self unless commixed or allayed with some other Matter abounding with the other Principles or that it loose it s too fiery or destructive Nature by being exposed to the Sun or Air untill it be evaporated then will it emit several Vegetables Of the like Nature also are the flesh and bones
or drowning of Land as you have fed it bare then is it best to overflow from Alhallontide throughout the Winter may you use this Husbandry until the Spring that the Grass begin to be large during April and the beginning of May in some places may you give the Grass a little water once a week and it will prove wonderfully especially in a dry Spring In Drowning observe that you let not the water rest too long on a place but let it dry in the intervals of times and it will prove the better nor let Cattle tread it whil'st it is wet In the Summer if you desire to water your Land let it be in mild or Cloudy weather or in the night-time that the water may be off in the heat of the day lest in scorch the Grass and you be frustrate of your expectation In many places you may have the opportunity to command a 5 Manner of watring of Land by small streams or Engines small Spring or Stream where you cannot a larger or may obtain water by the Engines before-mentioned which may not be sufficient to overflow your Land in that manner nor so much to your content as the greater Currents may therefore you must make your Carriages small according to your water and let there be several stops in them that you may water the one part at one time and another part at another also in such dry and shelving Lands where usually such small Springs are and water by such artificial ways advanced a small drilling water so that it be constant worketh a wonderful Improvement In some places issue Springs whose waters are sterile and injurious 6 Barren Springs not useful to the Husbandman as are usually such that flow from Coal-mines or any Sulphureous or Vitrioline Minerals being of so harsh and brackish a substance that they become destructive to Vegetables Not but that those Minerals and also those waters contain much of that matter which is the cause and of the principles of Vegetation though not duly applied nor equally proportionated as much Urine Salt c. kills Vegetables yet duly fermented and artificially applied nothing more fertile Such Springs that you suspect prove them first before you go too far those that are bad are usually reddish in colour and leave a red sediment and shine as it runs and is not fertile until it hath run far and encreased it self from other Springs and gained more fertility in its passage as we usually observe greater Rivers though reddish in colour yet make good Meadow SECT III. Of dry Meadow or Pasture Every place is almost furnished with dry Meadows which are convetible sometimes into Meadows and sometimes into Pastures and such places much more where Waters Springs and Rivolets are scarce or the Rivers very great or the Country hilly that water cannot so well be commanded over such Lands as in other places they may which dry Meadows and Pastures are capable of Improvement by several ways And principally by Enclosure for where shall we finde better Improved by Enclosure dry Meadows and richer Pastures than in several hilly places of Somersetshire among the small Enclosures which not only preserveth the young Grass from the exsiccating Spring-winds but shadoweth it also in some measure from the Summer-scorching Sun-beams as before we noted in the Chapter of Enclosure Such Meadows or Pastures well planted with either Timber or Fruit-trees in the Hedge-rows or other convenient places and enclosed in small parcels will furnish you with good Hay and good Pasture when your Neighbour whose Lands are naked goes without it for dry Springs or Summers more usually happen than wet besides the shadow for your Cattle and many other advantages as before we observed In several places where the ground is moist cold clay spewy Burning of Rushy and Mossie ground rushy or mossie or subject to such inconveniencies that the Pasture or Hay is short sower and not proveable it is very good Husbandry to pare off the turf about July or August and burn the same after the manner as is hereafter described when we come to treat of burning of Land and then plough it up immediately or in the Spring following and sowe the same with Hay-dust or with Corn and Hay-dust together for by this means will that acid Juice that lay on the surface of the Earth which was of a sterile nature and hindred the growth of the Vegetables be evaporated away and also the Grass which had a long time degenerated by standing in so poor a Soil be totally destroyed and the Land made fertile and capable to receive a better species brought in the Seed from other fertile Meadows It is too commonly observed that many excellent Meadows or Stubbing up of shrubs c. Pasture-land are so plentifully stored with Shrubs small Hillocks Ant-hills or such like that a good part thereof is wholly lost and so much thereof as is mown is but in patches here and there and that that remains not so beneficial as if it were either mown or sed together Now the best way or Method of stubbing up such thorny Shrubs or Broom or Goss or any such annoying Shrubs which proves both laborious and costly any other way than this is ingeniously delivered by Gabriel Platt the Instrument Discovery of hidden Treasures by him discovered is like a three-grained dung-fork only but much greater and stronger according to the bigness of the Shrubs c. the stale thereof like a large and strong Leaver which Instrument being set half a foot or such reasonable distance from the Root of the Shrub c. then with a Hedging-beetle drive it in a good depth then elevate the Stale and lay some weight or fulciment under it and with a Rope fastened to the upper end thereof pull it down which will wrench up the whole bush by the Roots Also Ant-hills prove a very great annoyance to Pasture and Meadow-lands which may be destroyed by dividing the Turf on the top and laying of it open several ways then take out the core and spread over the other Land and lay the Turf down neatly in its place again a little hollowing in and lower than the surface of the Earth and at the beginning of the Winter the Water standing therein will destroy the remainder of the Ants and prevent their return and settle the Turf by the Spring that by this means may a very great Improvement be made of much Meadow or Pasture-land now a great part thereof Bushes and Ant-hills These Meadows and Pasture-lands where the water overfloweth Dunging or Soyling of Meadows and Pastures not at any time are the only places where you may lay your dung or other Manure to the best advantage it being not capable of being improved by water nor the Soil laid thereon subject to be carried away or at least the better part thereof extracted by the water either casually by Floods or any other way overflowing the same The best
Defence against Bees 182 To cure the sting of a Bee id Of the Bees work id The numbers of Bees 183 Of the Bees Enemies id Removing of Bees 184 Feeding of Bees id An Experiment for improving of Bees 185 A singular observation concerning the food of Bees id Of the fruit and profit of Bees id Driving of Bees 186 Exsection or gelding of Combs id Of the generation of Bees 188 The making of Metheglin id 2. Of Silk worms 190 Their Food id Time and manner of Hatching Silk-worms Eggs id Their sicknesses id Their time and manner of feeding 191 Their spinning id Their breeding id The winding of the Silk 192 CHAP. X. Of common and known external Injuries Inconveniencies Enemies and Diseases incident to and usually afflicting the Husbandman in most of the Ways and Methods of Agriculture before treated of And the several Natural and Artificial Remedies proposed and made use of for the prevention and removal of them 193 Sect. 1. From the Heavens or Air id Great heat or drought id Remedies for want of water 195 To make Cisterns to hold water 196 Great Cold and Frost 197 Much Rain 200 High Winds id Thunder and Tempest Hail c. 201 Mildews id Sect. 2. From the Water and Earth 203 Much water offending id Overflowing of the Sea id Land-floods id Standing-waters 204 Stones Shrubs c. 205 Weeds 206 Blights and Smut 207 Sect. 3. From several Beasts 208 Foxes id Otters id Coneys Hares 209 Poll-cats Weasels and Stotes id Moles or Wants id Mice or Rats 210 Sect. 4. From Fowls 211 Kites Hawks c. id Crows Ravens c. id Pigeons 212 Jays 213 Bullfinches id Goldfinches 214 Sparrows c. id Sect. 5. Of Insects and creeping things offending id Frogs and Toads id Snails and Worms id Gnats and Flies 215 Wasps and Hornets id Caterpillars 216 Earwigs id Lice id Ants id To destroy Ant-hills id Snakes and Adders 217 To cure the stinging of Adders or biting of Snakes id Sect. 6. Of some certain Diseases in Animals and Vegetables 217 Of Beasts and Fowl id Of the Murrain 218 Of the Rot in Sheep id An approved Experiment for the cure of the Fashions in Horses and Rot in Sheep 219 Another for the Measles in Swine and also to make them fat id Sect. 7. Of Thieves and ill Neighbours 220 CHAP. XI Of the several sorts of Instruments Tools and Engines incident to this Profession of Agriculture and of some Amendments and profitable Experiments in Building either by Timber Stone Brick or any other way 223 Sect. 1. Of the several sorts of Ploughs id Double-wheeled-Plough 224 Turn-wrest Plough id Single-wheeled-plough id Plain Plough id Double Plough id Another sort of Double Plough id Other sorts of Ploughs 225 Good properties of the Plough id Errors of the Plough id A Turfing Plough id Sect. 2. Of Carts and Waggons 226 New sort of Cart id Waggon with sails 227 Sect. 3. Of several other Instruments used in digging id Of the Trenching-plough id Of Spades id Turfing-spade id Trenching-spade id Common Spades id The How 228 Other Instruments used in digging c. id Sect. 4. Other various Instruments id Sect. 5. Of Amendments and profitable Experiments in Building 229 The scituation of a House 230 Securest and cheapest way of building a House 231 Best Covering for a House 232 Of Tiles Bricks c. id Of building of Stone or Brick-walls 233 Of Mortar id Of Timber 234 Of Mills id CHAP. XII Of Fowling and Fishing 236 Sect. 1. Of Fowling in general id Of Fowling the nature of water-fowl id The haunts of Water-fowl id Sect. 2. Of taking the greater sort of fowl with Nets 237 The form of a Draw-net id Sect. 3. Of the taking small Water-fowl with Nets 238 Sect. 4. Of taking great Fowl with Lime-twigs id Of the divers ways of making Birdlime id Of the several uses of it 139 Of the taking small Fowl with Lime-twigs 240 Sect. 5. Of taking Fowl with Springes id Sect. 6. Of killing Fowl with the Fowling-piece 241 Of the choice of Gunpowder id The way to make shot id Of the Stalking-horse 242 Of the artificial Stalking-horse 243 Artificial Trees id A digression concerning decoy-ponds id Of the taking Wilde-Ducks Eggs 244 Sect. 7. Of taking Land-fowl id The greater sorts of them id Of taking Fowl by day-nets id Of taking Larks by day-nets id Of Stales 245 Another way to take Larks by a Day-net called daring of Larks id To take Birds with the Low-bell id To take Birds with the Trammel only 246 To take Birds by Batt-fowling id To take small Birds with Lime-twigs id To take Fieldfares or Bow-thrushes 247 Sect. 8. Of taking Fowl with Baits id To take Land-fowl with Baits id To take Water-fowl with Baits id Sect. 9. Of taking some sorts of Fowl id To take the Pheasant with Nets id To drive young Pheasants 248 To take Pheasants with Lime-twigs id To perch Pheasants id To take Partridge id To take them with a Trammel-net 249 To take them with a Setting-dog id To drive Partridges id To take them with Bird-lime id To take Woodcocks id To take them in a Cock-road id Of Fishing 250 Sect. 1. Of taking Fish by Nets Pots or Engines id To Fish with Nets id With the Trammel or Sieve id With the Casting-net 251 With the shore-net or pot-net id With Fish-pots id With Wears id With Hawks 252 The way of making a Piscary id A Hawk-net id Sect. 2. Of Angling 253 Observations in Angling id Seasons for Angling 254 Seasons not to Angle in id Sect. 3. Of Angling for Salmon Trout 255 Sect. 4. Of Angling for Pike and Perch id Sect. 5. Of Angling for standing-Water or Pond-fish 256 For the Carp id For the Tench id For the Dace 257 For the Roach id For the Bream id Taking of Eels id By Angle id With Bank-hooks id By Sniggling id By Bobbing 258 Sect. 6. Of Angling for the Barbel Grailing Umber Chevin and Chub id Of Cormorant Fishing 259 CHAP. XIII Kalendarium Rusticum or Monthly Directions for the Husbandman 261 In January 265 February 267 March 269 April 271 May 273 June 275 July 277 August 279 September 281 October 283 November 285 December 287 CHAP. XIV Of the Prognosticks of Dearth or Scarcity Plenty Sickness Heat Cold Frost Snow Winds Rain Hail Thunder c. 289 Sect. 1. Of the different appearances of the Sun Moon Stars Meteors or any other thing in the Air or above us 290 Of the motions colours and appearances of the seven Planets id Of the Sun id Of the Moon 292 Of the other Erraticks or Planets id Of Comets or Blazing-stars 293 Of the shooting of Stars 294 Of the fixed Stars id Of Fire or other casual appearances id Of the Clouds 295 Of Mists and Fogs id Of Winds 296
of Animals yielding a very rich Compost though of themselves through over-much heat and pinguidity sterile The Saline or more fixed Principle which is esteemed by most Where Salt abounds Authors the only thing conducing to Fertility yet is of its self or in an over-bounding quantity the most barren and unfruitful It is prescribed as a sure way to destroy Weeds Vegetables by watering the place with Brine or Salt-water yet what more fruitful being moderately commixed with other Materials of another nature than Salt But observe that Salts extracted out of the Earth or from Vegetables or Animals are much more Fertile than those of the Sea containing in them more of the Vegetative Power or Principles and are therefore much to be preferred Glauber makes it the highest improvement for the Land and for Continuatio Miraculi Mundi Trees also affirming that by it you may enrich the most barren Sands beyond what can be performed by any other Soils or Manures in case it be deprived of its Corrosive Qualities for then will it naturally attract the other Principles continually breathing out of the Earth and in the Air and immediately qualifie it self for Vegetation as I observed in a parcel of Field-Land of about three Acres denshired or burn-beaten in a very hot and dry Spring of it self naturally barren and after the burning and spreading the ashes wherein was the Fertile Salt deprived of its Corrosive sterile quality the Land was plowed very shallow and Barly sown therein about the beginning of May in the very ashes as it were no Rain falling from the very beginning of cutting the Turf yet in thirty and six hours was the Barley shot forth and the Ground coloured green therewith this Salt attracting and condensing the ever-breathing Spirit The like you may observe in Walls and Buildings where several sorts of Vegetables yea trees of a great bigness will thrive and prosper remote from the Earth and without any other nourishment than what that Fertile Salt attracts and condenses as before which it could not have done had it not been purged of its Corrosive and Sterile Nature by Fire when it was made into Lime For all Chymists know that no Salts more easily dissolve per deliquum than those that are most calcined The Salt also of the Sea is not without its Fertile Nature being ordered with Judgment and Discretion as we see evidently that the Salt Marshes out of which the Sea is drain'd excel in Fertility and many places being irrigated with the Sea-Water yield a notable increase Corn also therewith imbibed hath been much advanced as appeared in the President of the Country-man that casually let his Seed-Corn fall into the Salt-Water And in the Isle of Wight it is observed that Corn flourisheth on the very Rocks that are bedewed with the Salt-water by the Blasts of the Southern Winds The shells of fish being as it were only Salt coagulated have proved an excellent Manure for barren Lands after they have lain a competent time to dissolve From what hath been before observed we may conclude that Equal commixture of Principles the highest Fertility and Improvements are to be advanced and made from the most equal Commixture of the aforesaid several Principles or of such Waters Soils Dungs Salts Manures or Composts that more or less abound with either of them having regard unto the nature of such Vegetable whose propagation or advancement you intend Some delighting in a more Hot or Cold Moist or Dry Fat or Barren than others And next unto that from due Preservation Reception and right disposing and ordering of that Spiritus Mundi every where found and to be attained without Cost and as well by the poor as rich It continually breaths from the Earth as we noted before and is diffused in the Air and lost unless we place convenient Receptacles to receive it as by Planting of Trees and sowing of Pulses Grain or Seed Out of what think you should these things be formed or made Out of rain-Rain-water is the common Answer or Opinion But we experimentally finde that this Vniversal Subject gives to every Plant its Essence or Substance although assisted by Rain or Water both in its nourishment and condensation We see how great a Tree is raised out of a small Plat of Ground by its sending forth of its Roots to receive its nourishment penetrating into the smallest Crannies and Joynts between the Stones and Rocks where it finds the greatest plenty of its proper food We constantly perceive and finde that Vegetables having once emitted their fibrous Roots vegetate and increase only from the assistance of this our Vniversal Subject when the Earth wherein it stands is of it self dry and not capable to yield that constant supply of Moisture the Plant daily requires Although we must confess that Rain or other Water accelerates its Growth having in it a Portion of that Spiritus Mundi also better qualifies the Earth for its perspiration That this Subject is the very Essence of Vegetables and that from it they receive their Substance and not from water only is evident in such places where Vegetables are not permitted to grow and where it cannot vapor away nor is exhaled by the Sun nor Air as Underbuildings Barns Stables Pigeon-houses c. where it condenses into Nitre or Salt-Petre the only fruitful Salt though improperly so called containing so equal and proportionable a quantity of the Principles of Nature wholly Volatile only condensed in defect of a due recipient not generated as some fondly conceive from any casual Moisture as Urine in Stables c. though augmented thereby but meerly from the Spiritus Mundi Lands resting from the Plough or Spade are much enriched only by the encrease of this Subject and ordinary way of Improvement Lands defended from the violent heat of the Sun and from the sweeping cleansing and exsiccating Air or Winds grow more Fertile not so much from the warmth it receives as from the preservation of that Fertile Subject from being wasted as we evidently see it to be in all open Champion Lands when part of the very same Species of Land being inclosed with tall and defensive Hedges or Planted with Woods are much more Fertile than the other yea we plainly perceive that under the Covert of a Bush Bough or such like any Vegetable will thrive and prosper better than on the naked Plain Where is there more barren dry and hungry Land than on the Plains and Waste Lands and yet but on the other side of the hedges Fertile either by Inclosure or Planted with Woods an evident and sufficient demonstration of the high Improvements that may be made by Inclosure only Also Land hath been found to be extraordinary Fertile under Stones Logs of Wood c. only by the condensation and preservation of that Vniversal Subject as appears by the flourishing Corn in the most stony Grounds where it hath been observed that the Stones taken away Corn hath not
proved so well and Trees having Stones laid on the Ground about the Roots of them have prospered wonderfully from the same cause As the Learned Virgil hinted on the same occasion Jamque reperti Qui Saxo super atque ingentis pondere testae Vrgerent In the watering of Meadows you may observe that the superficial gliding watering thereof doth infinitely advance its fertility and accelerates its growth or vegetation not so much from the fruitfulness of the water although that be a very great help and some waters abound very much with that Vniversal Subject but by its condensation and preservation of that Subject as appears by the warmth and early springing of such Meadows where the water thinly and superficially moves over it where on the contrary water standing and submerging such Meadows and lying and soaking long under the superficies of the Earth impedes the motion of that Subject and makes the ground more sterile and backward in its growth or springing That this Spiritus Mundi hath in it a sensible heat as well as fertility we may perceive by Springs in great Frosts when the Pores of the Earth are shut the Body from whence the Springs flow is warm on the contrary when the Pores are open and this Spirit wasted and transformed into Vegetables Animals c. and exhausted by the heat of the Sun then is the Body internally cold as we sensibly perceive by the waters in Wells in Summer-time This Spiritus Mundi whereof we treat is that which in some places perspires more freely than in other and causes that different verdant colour of the Grass in certain rings or circles where the Country-people fancie the Fairies dance The more the Aqueous humour or part is concocted or exhausted by the heat of the Sun in the Summer-time the thicker and more viscous is this subject as appears by its condensation in the Air into Mildews which after a more glutinous manner than other Rains or Dews is by the cool Air condensed into a fat and fruitful matter part thereof resting on the close and glazie leaves of the Oak and such-like Trees is collected and with very little Art transformed by the industrious Bee into that noble substance Honey other part thereof falls on the young Ears of Wheat and the Buds of springing Hops where suffering a further degree of congelation impedes their growth unless a timely shower wash it off It also by its heat tinges the straw of corn and the leaves of some Trees in spots At that season of the year also it usually coagulates in some places into Mushrooms which are meerly formed and made up of this subject undigested and perspire forth in such places in great plenty so that I have seen a Mushroom near an Ell in compass of less than two days growth the Owner in whose Garden it grew affirmed it to be of one night only You may also perceive it in a clear and cool morning condensed into small lines like unto Spiders-webs near the surface of the earth especially on the lower and richer Lands This is that Viscous Vapour that being concocted and digested long in the Air by the heat of the Sun or otherwise is condensed at length into that Sulpherous and Saline Matter and which by its combat in the Air occasions those Igneal Flames and Claps of Thunder which more frequently happen at such seasons of the year and in such Climates when and where this more concocted Vapour abounds and less in the colder Climates and Seasons where it is more aqueous This is that inexhaustible Treasure the Country-man is to preserve much more than the Soils and Dungs and such-like matters washed away with waters into the Sea which are inconsiderable in comparison of this for although Land be never so much impoverished through over-tilling thereof yet duly order'd and defended by this only Subject may it be recruited and fertilized as is evident in the poorest Land where Trees are grown after the removal of them the Land is much inriched by their shelter Also the return of the Soil or Dung that is made of the Product of any Land either by Pasturing or Tilling the same is a principal part of a good Husband and not to feed Cattle cut Hay and sowe corn on some Lands and spend their Soil and Manure on other which is a grand neglect and a main cause of so much barren and unfruitful Land in England Another thing worthy our consideration concerning this Vniversal Subject is the abating or removing the Impediments of its Fertility which do as it were suffocate or conceal that fertile or vegetating quality that is in many things As in Chalk and several other Stones Minerals and Earths the Acid or sterile Juice doth prevent that Fertility which otherwise might be raised from it Therefore do our Husband-men usually burn Stones into Lime which gradually evaporateth the Acid quality and coagulateth and fixeth the more Saline and Fertile which causeth it to yield so plentiful a nourishment unto Vegetables more than before it was burnt into Lime For the same cause is the Superficies or Turf of the Earth burnt in many places which Country-men usually call denshiring or burn-beating only they suppose that the Ashes of the Vegetable contained in the Turf occasions the Fertility But although that doth yield a part yet it is the heat of the fire evaporating and consuming the Acidity of the Earth which makes the Earth it self so prepared to be the more fertile As you may observe by the very places where those hills of fire were made that although you take the Ashes wholly away yet the Earth under those hills being so calcined yields a greater nourishment to such Vegetables growing thereon than on any other part of the ground where the Ashes themselves are spread For the same reason are the Summer-Fallowings advantageous to the Husbandman not only for the destroying of the weeds but for the evaporation of the Acid barren Juyce and digesting and fixing the fertile by which way of Calcination may several Stones Minerals and Earths be made fertile which unprepared are not so this may also prove of great use for the advancement of the growth of many excellent Plants and Flowers as I have been credibly informed hath been secretly practised to that purpose The last and none of the least considerable means for the re-reviving and improving this Subject is not only the planting sowing and propagating of Vegetables in every place but to plant sowe or propagate such that delight in the Soyl or Place under your improvement be the nature of the Soyl or Earth what it will there is some Plant or other delights in it from the highest cold hot dry or barren hill to the lowest valley although in the water it self you will finde either Trees Pulses Grasses Grains or some other Vegetable may be found that will thrive in it Hic segetes illic veniunt faelicius uvae Arborei foetus alibi atque myrissa virescunt gramina
Subject Non tantum in agris praestat sed Page 21. etiam arboribus vit ibus adeo ut una eodem plena tonna tantum ad agrorum stercorationem conferre valeat quantum decem simo equino aut vaccine replet a plaustra solent This kinde of Manure either by Burning as before or with the fixed Salts of any thing whatsoever doth also much more enrich your Crop than any other Dung or Soil for this tendeth principally unto fertility ordinary Dung of Beasts more unto the gross substance of the Straw or Hawme than unto Fruit or Seed and also breeds more of Weeds than this our Vniversal Subject There are also several other sorts of Materials to be used as Other Soyls and Manures Soils and Manures for the fertilizing and enriching of Lands Some whereof are taken from the Earth as Chalk Marle Clay c. Others from the Waters as Sands Weeds c. Others also are the Dungs and Excrements of living Creatures and others that are several sorts of Vegetables themselves and other casual things as Soot Raggs c. Of all which we finde these whereof we shall now treat to have been found out and commended to be useful and beneficial to the Husbandman for the purposes before mentioned SECT II. Soyls and Manures taken from the Earth Whereof there are several sorts some of so hard and undissoluble Of Chalk a nature that it is not fit to lay on Lands simply as it is but after it is burned into Lime becomes a very excellent Improver of Lands there are also other sorts of Chalk more unctuous and soluble which being laid on Lands crude as they are and let lie till the Frosts and Rain shatter and dissolve the same prove a very considerable advantage to barren Lands now where any of these Chalks are found it is good to prove their natures by laying them on some small portion of Land crude as they are or by burning them into Lime if Fewel be plenty or to half burn them by which you may experimentally know the true effects and benefits that Subject will yield And although Chalk simply of it self either burnt or unburnt may not prove so advantageous as many have reported yet is it of very great use to be mixed with Earth and the Dungs of Animals by which may be made an admirable sure and natural fruitful Composition for almost any sorts of Lands and raiseth Corn in abaundance Liming of Land is of most excellent use many barren parts of Of Lime this Nation being thereby reduced into so fertile a condition for bearing most sorts of Grain that upon Land not worth above one or two shillings an Acre well husbanded with Lime hath been raised as good Wheat Barly white and gray Pease as England yields English Improver Also that by the same means from a Ling Heath or Common naturally barren and little worth hath been raised most gallant Corn worth five or six pound an Acre By the same Author He also affirms that some men have had and received so much profit upon their Lands by once liming as hath paid the purchase of their Lands and that himself had great advance thereby yet lived twenty miles from Lime and fetched the same by Waggon so far to lay it on his Lands One Author saith twelve or fourteen quarters will Lime an Acre another saith 160 Bushels the difference of the Land may require a different proportion The most natural Land for Lime is the light and sandy the next mixt and gravelly wet and cold gravel not good cold clay the worst of all Also a mixture of Lime Earth and Dung together is a very excellent Compost for Land Marle is a very excellent thing commended of all that either Of Marle Differences of Marle write or practise any thing in Husbandry There are several kinds of it some stony some soft white gray russet yellow blew black and some red It is of a cold nature and saddens Land exceedingly and very heavy it is and will go downwards though not so much as Lime doth The goodness or badness thereof is not Signes of good or bad Marle known so much by the colour as by the Purity and Uncompoundedness of it for if it will break into bits like a Dye or smooth like Lead-Oar without any composition of Sand or Gravel or if it will slake like Slate-stones and slake or shatter after a shower of Rain or being exposed to the Sun or Air and shortly after turn to dust when it 's throughly dry again and not congeal like tough Clay question not the fruitfulness of it notwithstanding the difference of colours which are no certain signes of the goodness of the Marle As for the Slipperiness Viscousness Fattiness or Oyliness thereof although it be commonly esteemed a signe of good Marle yet the best Authors affirm the contrary viz. That there is very good Marle which is not so but lieth in the Mine pure dry and short yet nevertheless if you water it you shall finde it slippery But the best and truest Rule to know the richness and Best way to know Marle profit of your Marle is to try a Load or two on your Lands in several places and in different proportions They usually lay the same on small heaps and disperse it over Use and Benefit of Marle the whole Field as they do their Dung and this Marle will keep the Land whereon it is laid in some places ten or fifteen and in some places thirty years in heart it is most profitable in dry light and barren Lands such as is most kinde and natural for Rye as is evident by Mr. Blithes Experiment in his Chapter of Marle It also affordeth not its vertue or strength the first year so much as in the subsequent years It yields a very great Increase and Advantage on high sandy gravelly or mixed Lands though never so barren strong Clay-ground is unsutable to it yet if it can be laid dry Marle may be profitable on that also It is very necessary in marling Lands to finde out the true proportion how much on every Acre that you add not too much nor too little in medio virtus It 's better to erre by laying on too little than too much because you may add more at pleasure but you cannot take away the surest way is to try some small quantities first and proceed as your Experiments encourage It hath been also experimentally observed that you are to lay your Marle in the beginning of Winter on hard and binding Grounds And on the contrary you are to lay it in the Spring on light sandy dry and gravelly lands but it 's good to try both it 's held to be best to lay it abroad in the beginning of Winter that the Frosts may first make the same moulder into small pieces and so to become apt for Solution which is done by the Rains that more plentifully fall in the Winter You shall
not ruine of the Plant. The same time and Method is to be observed in the transplantation Of such Trees that come of Slips Suckers c. removal or propagation of the Suckers Cions Slips or Layers of the Elm Birch Lime-tree Horse-chesnut and such other Trees that are usually produced of Suckers Layers Slips c. as you do in the removal of the young Seedlings of the other Trees Only that for the slipping or laying of such Branches of Trees Time to slip or lay that had not before taken any Root the most proper time is in the top of the Spring about the time that the Sap is newly risen and the Tree ready to bud All Trees that are raised of Pitchers or Sets as the Poplar Aspen The time for Aquaticks Abel Alder Withy Salley Osier Willow Elder and Privet are to be planted in February or March before they are too forward Let your young Plants be removed rather into a better mould Manner of transplanting though there is but a little about the Roots than a worse let as much Earth adhere to the Roots as you may and leave as much of the Root on as you can abating only the top-root or downright Roots and spread the other every way in the pits or holes made for that purpose which ought to be made larger and deeper than the Plant at present requires and filled up with loose mould that young Roots may the better spread to seek nourishment for the Tree In Transplanting be sure to preserve the smallest Roots which gather the Sap and in filling the Earth about the Tree endeavour to keep them to a level with Earth between them that they may not be irregularly placed for the well settling these Roots will conduce very much to the prosperity of the Tree It is good to plant it as shallow as might be and not below the Plant shallow better part of the Earth into the Gravel Clay Sand nor Water c. but rather advance the Earth about the Tree than set the Tree too deep be sure also not to set it deeper than it stood before In the removal of such Trees that have arrived to any considerable Observe the coast bigness it is very expedient to observe the coast and side of the stock which way it stood before its removal and not to be esteemed such a trifle as Lawson and many other trifling Authors pretend For it is most evident that the Sap doth naturally flow most on that side of the Tree that 's next the Sun and on that side doth the Tree more encrease than on the other as is evident in observing the Pith to be nearer the North than South-side of the Tree But in such Trees that stand thick in a Nursery or have long stood in the shade where the Sun hath wrought little or nothing upon them you may be less critical The Oak Pine and Walnut-trees bear spreading large branches The distance and require greater distances than any other therefore the nearest should stand forty foot The Beech Ash Eugh Fir Chesnut c. may stand somewhat nearer than the other The Elm and the Horn-beam will grow the nearest of any Trees For the other you may plant them at what distance the magnitude of the Tree your occasions or the nature of it requires The Watering of your Trees immediately upon their transplantation Watering of Trees very much conduceth to their prosperity and settling the Earth about the Roots unless in weather extreme cold and where the Plant is of a tender kinde Also the young Plants for the first year will require your aid in watering of them in a dry Spring Also if Trees have been carried far the setting of the Roots in Water some certain time before you inter them conduces much to their revival If the Trees be of any considerable height they ought to be Staking of Trees carefully defended as well from the injurious Winds as the frications of Beasts by staking them and with a wisp of Hay or other soft Ligament to binde them to such stake not omitting to interpose a little Moss or Hay c. between the Tree and stake to preserve it from galling If your Trees be in danger of Cattles injuries then you ought to bind or set bushes about them to prevent rubbing Planters in most places do strictly observe to cut the foot or Planting of Aquaticks ground-end of Poplar Withy or other Aquatick Pitchers or Sets only one way like a Hindes foot pretending that to be a principal observation If either your impatient fancie or your urgent occasions oblige Removing Trees in Summer you to the removal or Transplantation of Trees in the Summer you may tread in the steps of a certain Prince Elector that at Hidelbergh in the midst of Summer removed very great Lime-trees out of one of his Forrests to a steep hill exceedingly exposed to the heat of the Sun the Heads being cut off and the Pits into which they were transplanted filled with a Composition of earth and Cow-dung which was exceedingly beaten and so diluted with Water as it became almost a Liquid Pap wherein he plunged the Roots covering the Surface with the Turf It is presumed that if the Trees were smaller be they of what Wood soever there needeth not so absolute a decapitation Several relations there are of Trees that have been planted or Transplanting of great Trees removed of eighty years growth and fifty foot high to the nearest bough wafted upon Floats and Engines four long miles with admirable success and of Oaks planted as big as twelve Oxen could draw to which effect these are prescribed as the ways to accomplish the like designes Chuse a Tree as big as your Thigh remove the Earth from about him cut through all the Collateral Roots till with a competent strength you can inforce him upon one side so as to come with your Axe at the Tap-Root cut that off redress your Tree and so let it stand covered about with the mould you loosened from it till the next year or longer if you think good then take it up at a fit season Or a little before the hardest Frost surprise you make a square Trench about your Tree at such distance from the stem as you judge sufficient for the Root dig this of competent depth so as almost quite to undermine it by placing blocks and quarters of Wood to sustain the Earth this done cast on it as much Water as may sufficiently wet it unless the ground were moist before thus let it stand till some very hard Frost do bind it firmly to the Roots and then convey it to the pit prepared for its new station But if it be over-ponderous you may raise it with a Pully between a Triangle placing the Cords under the Roots of the Tree set it on a Trundle or Sled to be conveyed and replanted where you please by these means you may transplant Trees
if they do they are easily found again If the Worms are not well fed the Silk is small and easily breaks Another way to make these Gummy Bottoms winde easie is this Take Soap-boilers Liquor or Lee which is very sharp and strong and put therein your Bottoms and set them over the fire till the Liquor be scalding hot and so let the Bottoms remain therein about half a quarter of an hour till the Gumminess be dissolved then put the Bottoms into clean scalding water and let them lie a while therein then will they unwinde with much facility A Lixivium made of Wood-ashes very strong will do as well as the aforesaid Soap-boilers Liquor There is a kinde of Tow or rough sort of Silk that will not winde up with the other which may be prepared and good Silk made thereof and indifferent also of the Bags themselves The fine Skeins after they have past through the Scowrers Throsters and Dyers hands may compare with the finest CHAP. X. Of the common and known External Injuries Inconveniences Enemies and Diseases incident to and usually afflicting the Husbandman in most of the Ways or Methods of Agriculture before treated of and the several Natural and Artificial Remedies proposed and made use of for the Prevention and Removal of them SInce the Exclusion of our First Parents out of the state of Bliss or Paradise all our Actions Endeavours and Enterprises have been subject to the various and uncertain dispositions of an Over-ruling Providence and also of Fortune and unexpected chances and accidents and more especially the several Actions and Imployments that are incident and belonging to this Noble Art of Agriculture and its several branches before treated of that no one exercised in Husbandry can promise himself a peculiar Indemnity from the usual misfortunes that generally attend it which is the cause that at some time that very Commodity is dear and scarce which at another time is cheap and plentiful and that some Husbandmen have excellent Crops and good success at the same time when others have the contrary These very considerations have not only stirred up the Ingenious to consider of the Diseases and Injuries themselves but also to seek after the means to avoid those that of necessity attend them and to prevent such that may be prevented which we finde dispersed in several Authors and also finde to have been made use of by many of our Modern Ingenious Rusticks and not yet made publick And first we will discourse of such injuries and inconveniences that proceed SECT I. From the Heavens or the Air. This Island is generally subject to great heat or drought in Great heat or drought the Summer-time which so much exsiccateth and wasteth the moisture and Vegetative Nature of the Earth that much of our common Field or open Land yields but a reasonable Crop of In Corn-Lands Corn nor our open and wide Pastures or dry Lands much Grass or feeding for Cattle yet are these driest Summers most propitious unto us and in them do we reap the most copious Crops but it is because we have so much low grounds under the Shelter and so many Inclosures defended from the destructive and sweeping Summer-Airs where in those dry years we have our richest Harvests so that Nature it self and common Experience hath chalked out unto us a remedy for our dry barren and hungry Lands and Pastures whether Common or Appropriate against heat and drought the two principal inconveniencies attending those Lands if we had but the hearts of men to make use of it It is said that in Cornwal they begin to practise this Husbandry and plant Mounds and Fences with Timber-Trees which growing tall do much preserve the Land from malignant Airs and yield a great profit besides See more of this Remedy before in the Chapter of Inclosures Heat or Drought also produces more particular inconveniencies In planting Trees or injuries as to Trees sown or planted abroad in the open Fields or in Inclosures Gardens c. which is a very great check or impediment to the Husbandman in propagating them the preventions or remedies whereof are several 1. In the driest and most barren Lands in England if you sow the same with the Fruit or Seed of Oak Ash Beech or any other wood whatsoever you may also sow the same Land at the same time with Broom Furze or suchlike which will wonderfully thrive on the worst of Land and become a shelter to the other Trees which when once they have taken sufficient Root will soon out-strip the Furze or Broom or you may raise Banks and sow them with Furze which will soon make a Fence under the shelter whereof you may Nurse up other Trees for it is most evident that the greatest Trees that grow on the barrenest Lands had their Original in the same places where they grow and is most probable that they were thus defended by some small Bush or Brake from Cattle Heat Cold c. till they arrived to such height that they could defend themselves 2. For such Trees that are usually planted in Hedg-rows or other places of Inclosures c. which the heat and drought doth either impede their growth or totally kill them to the great discouragement of the Planter adde to the Roots of them on the Surface of the Earth a heap of stones which is the best Additament and will keep the roots and ground about it cool and moist in the Summer and warm in the Winter and fortifie the Tree against Windes c. but where stones are not easily attained heaps of Fern or any other Vegetable Straw or Stubble c. will preserve the ground moist and inrich it withal but where neither stones nor Vegetables can be had conveniently after the Tree is planted and good Mould or Earth added to the Roots raise a Hillock about it of any manner of Turf Earth c. for it is not the height of the Earth above the ground about the Tree that injures it so much as the depth of the Tree below the Surface or best Earth 3. In Gardens and such near places where you may be at hand and where you have choice Plants that suffer by heat Shadow is a principal remedy as before we noted or water in such places where it may be commanded In several places Water is the principal thing deficient to make Remedies for want of Water them pleasant and profitable and the means whereby to procure it very tedious costly and difficult It is several ways attainable 1. By sinking of Wells which where they are very deep some use a large Wheel for Man or Beast to walk in to raise it others use a double Wheel with Cogs which makes it draw easier than the ordinary single Wheel but this is not so good a way as the double Wheel with Lines the Line of the Wheel at your hand being small and very long this raiseth a large Bucket of water with very much ease and
Meadows or such places where you are not willing to dig or much break the ground fuming the holes with Brimstone Garlick and other unsavoury things will drive them out of the ground that was before infested with them But the putting a dead Mole in a Common Haunt will make them absolutely forsake it Every Countryman almost is sensible of the great injuries and Mice or Rats annoyances they receive from these Vermine both in the Fields where they raise Nurseries of Trees in their Gardens where they sow and plant Beans Please c. and in their Houses Barns and Corn-reeks In the Fields Orchards Gardens c. I know no readier way to destroy them than by placing an Earthen-pot in the ground and covering it with a board with a hole in the middle thereof and over the board to lay Hawm or suchlike rubbish under which the Mice seek for shelter and soon finde their Trap to receive them The usual way of building Reeks of Corn on Stavals set on stones is the only prevention against Mice and has proved so successful that in some places large Edifices are built on such stones that they supply the defect of Barns being covered like them Granaries also I have seen built after the same manner Binnes or Hutches for Corn may be placed on Pins like the other and prove secure places for Corn against these pernicious Vermine but great caution must be used that no Stick Ladder or other thing lean against these places lest the Mice finde the way to come where you would not have them In your Flower-gardens Apiary or in the several Rooms of your House Traps may be placed to destroy them unless where you can conveniently keep a Cat the only Enemy and Destroyer of Mice and Rats Arsenick or the Root of White-hellebor will destroy them being given with Sugar or suchlike mixture The last is the best because it destroys only Rats and Mice SECT IV. From Fowls As the best of Contents this World affords hath its part or share of trouble and vexation so this pleasant and excellent Rustick Life and Imployment is not free from care and trouble how to preserve it self from those Enemies and Plagues that daily attend it Sometimes the Heavens frown the Waters swell the Bryers snarl the Wilde Beasts are envious at our Innocent and most delectable enjoyments and if these withdraw their evil influence yet have we the Fowls of the Air Insects and several other Evils to encounter withal which without our diligent care and industry are ready to bereave us of the best part of the Fruits of our labours As we frequently observe that Kites Hawks and other Birds of Kites Hawks c. Prey wait for Pigeons Chickens tame Pheasants c. therefore is it very necessary that the Countryman keeps a Fowling-piece ready fitted and charged which is the best means to destroy and scare them away Also you may place small Iron-gins about the breadth of ones hand made like a Fox-gin and baited with Raw Flesh whereby I have caught very large Hawks Also by the streining of Lines or pieces of Nets over the places where you keep tame Pheasants Chickens or suchlike will fray them away The cutting down of Trees about your Pigeon-house will keep them from haunting it so much as otherwise they would do Crows Ravens Rooks and Magpies are great annoyances to Crows and Ravens c. Corn both at Seed-time pulling it up by the Roots whilest it is young and feeding on it also at the Harvest a good Fowling-piece is the best Instrument for the present But the only way to destroy the kinde of them and make their Flocks a little thinner were by some Publick Law to incourage the destruction of their Nests and Young which are so obvious at the building-time that it seems to be a very feasible work and much to be preferr'd before Crow-nets c. Several pretty Inventions of Scare-crows there are to keep the Corn free from them amongst which this is esteemed the most effectual viz. To dig a hole in some obvious place where the Crows c. annoy your Corn let it be about a foot deep or more and near two foot over and stick long black Feathers of a Crow or other Fowl round the edges thereof and some also in the bottom Several of these holes may be made if your ground be large and where these holes are thus dressed the Crows will not dare to feed I presume the reason is because whilest they are feeding on the ground the terrifying Object is out of their sight which is not usual in other Scare-crows wherewith in a little time they grow familiar by being always in view Dead Crows c. hang'd up do much terrifie them but amongst Cherry-trees and other Fruits which are much prejudiced by the Crows c. draw a Pack-thred or small Line from Tree to Tree and fasten here and there a black Feather and it is sufficient These Fowl that bring so great an advantage to one prove Pigeons a far greater annoyance and devourer of Grain to all the rest of the Neighbourhood It is an unknown quantity of Wheat Barley Pease c. that these devour not to mention the Prodigious computation that some have made of the damage committed by them on the Corn Grain c. yet is it most evident that they destroy a great part of the Seed and Crop notwithstanding several stand for their vindication alledging that they never scrape and therefore take only the Grain that lies on the surface of the Earth that would otherwise be destroyed and not grow To which I answer That that very Corn that lies on the Surface may prove the best Corn unless in Winter-corn the extream Frosts destroy it or in the Spring the extream Drought It having been of late found to be a piece of very good Husbandry in some light and shallow Lands first to Plough it about August and then to run the Fold over it and well settle it and afterwards to sow and harrow it which must needs make well for the Pigeons and ill for the Husbandman where they cannot be kept from it Also it is to be observed that where the flight of Pigeons fall there they fill themselves and away and return again where they first rose and so proceed over a whole piece of ground if they like it Although you cannot observe any Grain above the ground they know how to finde it As I have seen the experience of it that a Piece of about two or three Acres being sown with Pease the Pigeons lay so much upon it that they devoured at least three parts in four of it which I am sure could not be all above the Surface of the ground That their Smelling is their principal Director I have also observed having sown a small Plat of Pease in my Garden near a Pigeon-house and very well covered them that not a Pease appeared above ground In a few
or expanded or more dense or contracted We shall not take any further notice of the nature of the Air in this place than it serves to our present intention which is only to demonstrate unto you that the Air is an absolute Body fluid and transparent and in several particulars like unto the water both being penetrable alike by their several Inhabitants the Fish with an equal facility piercing the waters as Fowls do the Air they are both Nutriments to their several Animals residing in them they both obstruct the Visual Faculty alike as they are more or less dense they are both subject to Expansion or Contraction but the Air more they are both subject to Undulation as they are fluid The Air is also capable to support great burdens as the vast quantities of water that flow over our heads in stormy or rainy weather which according to the rarity and density of the Air do gradatim diffuse themselves upon the Earth as is most evident in the more hot and Southerly Countries where the Air is more hot and thin there Rain falls with that violence as though it were water poured forth when in the more Northerly where the Air is more dense or gross it distils in minute drops as it were cribrated through the thick Air. We also may discern a manifest difference for in the warmer seasons of the year the Air being then most thin the Rain falls in greatest drops and in the colder seasons when the Air is more dense the Rain distils in smaller So that when the waters are above us or that Clouds or Floods of water are in being in the Air we have only to judge whether they incline towards us or that they are for some other place This rarity or density of the Air cannot be judged by the sight for it is usual when the Air it self is most rare then is it most repleat with vapours c. as water the more it is heated the less transparent it becomes Neither can it be judged by its weight as many do imagine and affirm from Fallacious Experiments for the Air is not ponderous in its own proper place no otherwise than water is in the Sea in its proper place although it be asserted by High-flown Philosophers and Learned Pens with whom it is besides our Primary intentions to contend in this place it being enough here to discover to our Country-Reader these mysterious Intricacies of Nature as they would have them esteemed by familiar Examples and Demonstrations For the true discovery of the nature and temper of the Air Of Thermometry or the Weather-glass as to its density or rarity we have not met with a more certain or compleat Invention than the Weather-glass the various and intricate Descriptions whereof we will not insist upon but take our Observations from the most plain and ordinary single Perpendicular-Glass being only as follows Procure at the Glass-house or elsewhere a Globular-glass with a Tube or Pipe thereto proportionable whereof there are many sizes but be sure let not the Head be too big nor the Pipe too long lest there be not rise enough in the Winter or fall enough in the Summer You must also have a small Glass or Vessel at the bottom that may contain water enough to fill the Tube or more Then having fixed them in some Frame made for that purpose heat the Globe of the Glass with a warm Cloth to rarifie the Air within it and then put the end of the Tube into the lower Vessel and it will attract the water more or less as you warmed the Head You may also add numbers on the Glass to shew you the degrees The water you may make blew with Roman-Vitriol boiled or red with Rose-leaves dry and imbibed in fair water wherein a little Oyl of Vitriol or Spirit of Salt is dropt With this water fill the under-Vessel which being rightly placed on the North-side of your house where the Sun rarely or never shineth against it and in a Room where you seldom make fire lest the sudden access of heat or accidental alteration of the Air might impede your Observations The Air included within the Globe or Ball of this Glass doth admit of Dilatation and Contraction equally with the Ambient Air that whensoever the Ambient Air is dilated or expanded either through the heat of the season or before the fall of Rain c. the Air in the Glass is the same and as by its Expansion it requires more room so doth it let the water in the Tube descend gradually and as it is more dense or contracted either through the coldness of the season or the serenity or inclinability to drought of the Ambient Air so also doth the Air within the Glass contract it self into a less compass and sucketh up the water in the Tube gradually as it condenseth or contracteth whence you may at any time exactly know the very degree of Rarity or Density of the Air Ambient by that which is included in the Glass and thereby inform your self what weather is most likely to succeed at any time Be sure to Quadrate or Contemporize your Observations or Numbers of Degrees with the season of the year for that Degree of Rarity that signifies Rain in the Winter may be such a Degree of Density that may signifie fair weather in the Summer The differences betwixt the highest rise and lowest fall in one day in the Summer is much more than in the Winter for you shall have a cold night and very serene Air which contracteth the Air in the Glass into a little Room after which usually succeeds a very hot day which dilateth it very much when in the Winter no such great difference happens in one day Yet in the Winter in several days will the difference be as great as in several Summer-days Although the Air appear serene and cold to your Senses yet trust not to that if the Glass signifie otherwise We shall not give you any sure Rule by which you may judge of the weather but leave it to your own observations that is draw on a paper a certain number of lines as many as you think fit as Musitians draw lines to prick their Tunes on at the end whereof as they place their Key so number your lines according to those numbers that are next unto the top of the water in the Tube of the Glass whether seven eight nine ten eleven twelve c. Over this Scale mark the day of the Month and point of the winde in the Scale make a dot or prick at what line or number the water in the Glass is at and by it the hour of the day and under it the inclination of the weather At night draw a line downright like the Musitians full time or note the next day mark as before until you know and understand the nature of your Glass and the place it stands in and the season of the year so that then you shall be able
Trees of their delicacies then also doth the Air begin to wax cool to recollect and refresh our spirits before debilitated with too much heat At length enters cold Hyems which of all the rest conduces most to the health of our bodies for then our superfluous humours are with cold compressed or else concocted and the Natural heat being the more concentrated renews its power and more easily performs digestion and expelling Obnoxious Humours as Philosophers say Powers united are of greater force than dispersed so then are we more firm active and strong The end of Winter gives a beginning to the subsequent Spring Annus in Angue latet so are the Rural Pleasures and Oblectations renewed ad infinitum The Heathens of old had also a very high esteem of Agriculture as appears by their several Gods and Goddesses whom they judged had a Tutelar care over those Fruits of the Earth and other things under their Tuition as Bacchus Ceres Diana Saturn Flora Pales and several others But leaving them we finde many Learned men of Profound parts and most excellent Ingenuity to have taken delight and to have been very studious of this Art as Cicero who so highly affected and esteemed these Rusticities that amongst several other Rural Habitations wherein he took much delight he was so well pleased with the pleasant Scituation of the Tusculan Fields or Country as there to institute as it were another Academy and compose those Philosophical Questions which from the place he named Tusculan Cato the Roman Censor and Excellent Moralist was wont to say that he placed his whole Recreation and the Universal Tranquillity of his minde in the exercise of Rural Affairs therefore with infinite of pleasure and affectation did he inhabit in the Village Sabine positively affirming that a better and more pleasant life was not to be found Seneca also was of the same Opinion that he could tarry in no place more willingly than in his own Village into which with a very great Art he brought an Aquaduct to water his Gardens What shall we say of Varro Palladius and Columella who published so many useful and profitable Precepts of Agriculture and so industriously exercised and delighted themselves in a Rustick life We might produce many more instances of most Honourable Learned and Worthy Persons who rather elected and preferred to spend their remaining days in the Country than in the most Pompous Palaces and Cities but that we judge it needless Such that desire to hear more we refer them to Pliny and other Authors more Copious in Historical Relations It is for no other reason that Gardens Orchards Partirres Avenues c. are in such request in Cities and Towns but that they represent unto us Epitomized the Form and Idea of the more ample and spacious pleasant Fields Groves and other Rustick objects of pleasure Formerly Gardens were not in Cities and Towns but in Villages without as Pliny witnesseth until Epicurus the Doctor and Master of Pleasure and Voluptuousness first planted them in Athens which was afterwards imitated and brought into use by such who loved their Pleasures Gardens where ever planted were always in esteem as the Famous Gardens of Adonis and Alcinous and those Horti Pensiles of Semiramis Queen of Babylon or Cyrus King of Assyria elevated so high from the Earth on Tarraces and other Edifices that they were numerated amongst the most stupendious and wonderful works that were in the World Also that Renowned and Fictitious Garden of the Hesperides Hieroglyphically and Philosophically representing unto us the Summary of Eternal Atchievements or Enjoyments The Romans also made great store of Gardens and placed great pleasure in them We must not forget the singular care and industry of the Egyptians in Tilling their Gardens wherein by reason of the temperature of the Air the goodness of the Earth and their exquisite Industry flourish and grow throughout the year the green Herbs and infinite variety of pleasant Flowers How many rare and excellent Gardens and places allotted and designed for Pleasure are in every part of this Kingdom and in our Neighbouring Countries but more especially in Renowned Italy the Garden it self of the World The great study care ingenuity cost and industry bestowed and imployed about them are Arguments sufficient to convince the greatest Antagonist of the infinite contentment and delight they had and enjoyed in Agriculture and those kinde of Rural exercises the commendations whereof the great advantages oblectations and its universal uses and pleasures are so many and too tedious here to enumerate that it requires an eloquent Pen and an expert hand to discover its worth and not to be crowded into so narrow a confine as a Preface More you may read in several Authors of its praise practise and worth as Horace in several of his Poems hath written in the praise of Agriculture and a Country-life In Tibullus also you have one of his Elegies full of praises and delights of a Country life So also Angelus Politianus his Sylva Rustica and Pontanus his second Book De Amore Conjugali Also Cicero in his Book De Senectute writes in praise and commendation of the Country and of Agriculture where he says in one place Venio nunc ad voluptates Agricolarum quibus ego incredibiliter dilector c. Du Bartas also in his Divine Poems omits not the praise of this as most praise-worthy But Virgil hath more fully and amply set forth its praises and commendations in his Georgicks where he treats particularly of that Subject and doth not only recount the pleasures and profits that proceed from it but very Learnedly and Ingeniously also treats of the Art it self and gives many Precepts which are necessary to be observed in the exercise of Agriculture which renders it more delightsome and beneficial Hesiod also one of the prime Poets amongst the Ancients hath written an excellent exciting and necessary Poem treating of this Art Several others there are that have copiously and learnedly treated on this Subject Also a most evident demonstration and sure Argument of the Utility Pleasure and Excellency of this Branch of Natural Philosophy is the principal care the Royal and Most Illustrious Society take for the advancement thereof and for the discovery of its choicest and rarest Secrets and the most facile and advantagious means to improve the several Experiments and Practises relating to that Subject as the ever-honoured Mr. Evelin a most Worthy Member of that Society in particular hath done on one of the most principal parts of Agriculture viz. the planting of Trees both for Timber Fruits and other necessary uses and of making that Incomparable Liquor Cider But nothing could more conduce to the propagating incouraging and improving of this most necessary Art and of all other Ingenious and Mechanick Arts Inventions and Experiments than the Constitution of Subordinate Societies after a Provincial manner in several places of the Kingdom whose principal care and Office might be to collect all such Observations
are best for this work id Sect. 2. Principal Rules to be observed in drowning Lands 21 Cutting the main Carriage id Cutting the Lesser Carriages id Making the Drains id Times for watering 22 Manner of watering of Land by small Streams or Engines id Barren Springs not useful id Sect. 3. Of dry Meadow or Pasture improved id By Enclosure 23 By burning the rushy mossy ground id By stubbing up Shrubs c. id By Dunging or soyling 24 Time for soyling id Soyl for rushy and cold Land id For sandy or hot land id For other Meadows id Sect. 4. Of several new Species of Hay or Grass id Of the Clover-grass 25 Of the profit of Clover-grass id Best Land for Clover-grass id Quantity of Seed for an Acre 26 Time manner of sowing Clover-grass id Of cutting it for Hay and for Seed id Of pasturing or feeding Clover-grass 27 Of thrashing or ordering the Seed id Of St Foyn and the profits thereof 28 On what Land to sow it id Quantity of Seed on an Acre and manner of sowing of it id La Lucern 29 What ground it requires id Time and manner of sowing it id It s use id Sect. 5. Of some other Grasses or Hays id Esparcet id La Romain or French Tares or Vetches id Spurry-seed id Trefoyl 30 Long Grass in Wiltshire id Saxifrage id CHAP. IV. Of Arrable Land and Tillage and of the several Grains Pulses c. usually propagated by the Plough 31 Sect. 1. What Lands Improved by Tillage id Manner of Ploughing each sort 32 Clay stiff cold and moist id Rich and mellow Land 33 Poor and barren Land id Sect. 2. Of digging of Land for Corn 34 Sect. 3. Of the different Species of Grain Corn Pulse c. usually sown or necessary to be propagated in our Country-farm 35 Wheat id Barley 36 Rye 37 Massin id Oats id Buck-wheat or French-wheat id Other sorts of Grain id Pease id Beans 38 Fitches id Lentils id Lupines id Tares id Other Pulses id Sect. 4. Hemp and Flax 39 Impediments to the sowing of Hemp and Flax id Want of Trade an Impediment id Want of Experience id Tythes an Impediment id Hemp 40 Value of Hemp id Flax id Best Seed id Value of Flax 41 Sect. 5. Woad c. id To know when it is full ripe id Profit of Woad 42 Rape and Cole-seed id Profit thereof id Turneps id Sect. 6. Of the manner of setting Corn and the howing it in c. 43 Description of Mr. Grabriel Plat's Engine of setting Corn 44 The second Engine 45 Errors in this way 46 Howing of Corn commended id New Instrument for sowing of Corn 47 The more particular use and benefit of this Instrument 48 1 As to time 2 Equality of Seed 3 Rectification of the Feeder 4 No difference in driving fast or slow 5 No loss of Seed 6 Needs no harrowing General advantages of this Instrument 49 Another excellent advantage of this Instrument 50 Sect. 7. Of the general Uses of Corn Grain Pulse and other Seeds propagated by the Plough 51 Of Wheat id Of Barley id Of Rye id Of Oats id Of Pulses id Of the uses of Hemp-seed Flax-seed Rape and Cole-seed 52 Of the preservation of Corn id Sect. 8. Of the preparation of the Seed 53 Change of Seed an Improvement id Steeping of Corn in Dung-water and other preparations 54 55 56 CHAP. V. Of the Manuring Dunging and Soyling of Land 58 Sect 1. Of Burning of Land id On what Lands Burn-baiting is good 59 Manner of Burn-baiting id Sect. 2. Soyls and Manures taken from the Earth 61 Chalk id Lime id Marle 62 fullers-Fullers-Earth 63 Clay and Sand 64 Earth id Sect. 3. Soyls taken from the Sea or Water 65 Water-sand id Sea-weeds and Weeds in Rivers id Snayl Cod or Snag greet id Oyster-shells 66 Mud id Fish id Sect. 4. Of Dungs or excrementitious soils id Of Horse-dung id Of Cow or Ox-dung id Of Sheeps-dung 67 Of Swines-dung id Of the Dung of Fowl 68 Pigeons-dung id Poultry-dung id Goose-dung id Of Urines 69 Sect. 5. Of several other Soyls or Manures id Ashes id Soot 70 Salt id Rags id Hair 71 Malt-dust id Fern Straw Stubble c. id Bones Horns c. id Bark of Trees and old Earth in Trees id Urry id CHAP. VI. Of the Benefit Raising Planting and Propagating of all sorts of Timber-trees and other Trees useful either in Building or other Mechanick uses or for Feneing Fewel c. 72 Sect. 1. Of the benefit of propagating Timber-trees and other Trees in general id Particular advantages 73 More unniversal advantages 74 Sect. 2. Of Timber-trees in general 75 The Oak its propagation and use id The Elm 76 The Beech 78 The Ash 79 The Wallnut 80 The Chesnut id The Service 81 Sect. 3. Of several other Trees not so generally made use of for Timber as for Fewel Coppice-woods Hedge-rows c. 81 The Birch id The Maple 82 The Horn-beam id The Quick-beam id The Hasel id Sect. 4. Of Aquaticks or Trees affecting moist and watry places 83 The Poplar id The Aspen id The Abele id The Alder id The Withy id The Salley id Ofiers id Willow 84 Sect. 5. Of other Trees planted for Ornament or adorning Gardens Avenues Parks and other places adjoyning to your Mansion-house and convertible also to several uses 84 The Sycomore id The Lime-tree id The Horse Chesnut-tree 85 The Fir Pine Pinaster and Pitch-tree id The Larch Platanus and Lotus id The Cyprus 86 The Cedar id The Alaternus id The Phillyrea id The Bay-tree id The Laurel id The Eugh-tree id Privet id Sect. 6. Of Shrubs and other Trees less useful yet planted for Ornament and Delight 87 The Myrtle id The Box id Juniper id Tamarisk id Arbor Vitae id Some Flower-trees and other Trees of delight id Sect. 7. Of such Trees that are necessary and proper for Fencing and Enclosing of Lands Orchards Gardens c. And the best way of raising such Fences 88 The White-thorn id The Holly id Piracantha id The Black-thorn 89 The Elder id Furzes id The speediest way of planting a Quickset-Hedge id Another way id Of planting the Holly-Hedge id Preserving Hedges from Cattle id Weeding of Hedges id Plashing of Hedges id Sect. 8. Of the Nursery for the more convenient propagation of most of the fore-mentioned Trees 90 Trees produced of Seed id Preserving and preparation of the seed id Election of the seed 91 Place for a Nursery id Manner of sowing id Ordering of the Nursery id Sowing of a Coppice id Sect. 9. Of the transplantation of Trees 92 The time id Of such Trees that come of Slips Suckers c. id Time to slip or lay id The time for Aquaticks id Manner of transplanting id Watering of Trees 93
a Bush or such-like They are sown at two Seasons of the year in the Spring with other the like Kitchin-Tillage and also about Midsummer or after in the Harlib's Legacie Fields for the use of Cattle or any other use In Holland they slice their Turneps with their tops and Rape-seed Cakes and Grains c. and therewith make Mashes for the Cows and give it them warm which the Cows will eat like Hogs Cows and Swine also will eat them raw if they are introduced into the dyet by giving the Turneps first boyled unto them and then only scalded and afterwards they will eat them raw It is also reported that at Rouen they boyl Turneps with the Leaves on them till they be tender and add thereto Wheaten-bran and of the Cakes of Rape-seed or Lin-seed all which hath a singular faculty of fatting Cattle but for Milch-beasts they put less of the Seeds this they give twice a day and is the most part of their Feeding for the Winter only It is a very great neglect and deficiencie in our English Husbandry that this particular Piece is no more prosecuted seeing that the Land it requires need not be very rich and that they may be sown as a second Crop also especially after early-Pease and that it supplies the great want of Fodder that is usual in the Winter not only for fatting Beasts Swine c. but also for our Milch-Kine SECT VI. Of Setting of Corn. Besides the usual manner of sowing of Corn are there several other ways of dispersing it as by setting and howing of it in c. This Art of setting Corn seems to be very Ancient as appears by Virgil Vnguibus infodiunt ipsis fruges and hath been a long time attempted to be brought into practice again as appears by Mr. Platt's Adams Tool Revived Printed in the year 1600. where he doth very ingeniously describe not only the way but the great advantage that accrews by this then new Discovery The first part thereof giving you the reason why Corn sown in the common way yields not so great an increase as it doth by being set then he shews you the manner of digging the Land where you are to set your Corn whereof we have spoken before then he proceeds to the Description of his Instruments whereof some are only many pins set at a convenient distance in a Board which compressed on the Earth make so many holes wherein the Wheat-grains are to be dropt one by one but because these are very unnecessary and troublesome and that there are newer and better ways found out I shall decline any further discourse about them Also he gives you the distance and depth where he observes that at three Inches distance and three Inches depth there hath grown thirty Quarters of Wheat on an Acre of Ground and that four Inches in depth and distance hath yielded but twenty Quarters he also speaks of five Inches in depth and five in distance It 's probable the diversity of the Land or of these years wherein the experiments were proved might beget some differences Afterwards he adviseth in barren Lands to fill up the holes with some good mixture or fat Compost or to imbibe the Grain you set therewith whereof more hereafter Then Mr. Gabriel Platt succeeds with his newer and better Discovery of infinite Treasure composed Method of setting Corn whereby he pretends to remedy all the Inconveniences of the former way by his two new invented Engines the one for the more expeditious setting of the Corn the other for the laying up the Land on Ridges just on the tops of the rows of Corn that neither surplusage of moisture might annoy it nor frost in Winter kill it which way prevents the laying the Land in high Ridges before sowing Neither need the Land be digged only ploughed harrowed and then set The description of which Engine for the setting of Corn he Description of Mr. Platts Engine for setting Corn. gives you in these words Let there be two boards of equal breadth boared with wide holes at four inches distance and be set in a Frame of two Foot high the one from the other then let there be a Funnel for every hole made of thin boards about two Inches square Then for the top let there be two thin boards of equal breadth boared likewise whereof the uppermost is to be boared with an hot Iron with holes longer the one way than the other and is to be of such a thickness that but one Corn only can lie in the hole The other board is to be boared with wide holes and to be loose that while the Engine is charged the holey part may be under the holes of the uppermost board and when the holes in the Earth are made by the Nether-works then to be moved so that all the Corns may drop down And for charging a little Corn being swept up and down by a Broom or a Brush will fill the holes and if any miss the workman may put in here and there an odd Corn with his fingers and then moving the second Board till the holes be answerable all the Corns will drop down at an instant then let a large ledge be set about the top of the Engine to keep the Corn from spilling and so is the upper-part thereof made And as for the Nether-work it is somewhat more chargeable and intricate for there must be for every hole a little socket of brass cast with a Verge to nail unto the Nether-board about the hole which must be turned and boared all of one wideness to an hairs-breadth and must be wide above and streight below like a Faucet Then there must be Iron pins of five inches long of great thick Iron-wyer drawn so fit that no earth can come into the brass-sockets Now to make these play up and down at pleasure is the greatest skill in the whole work and there is no other way but that which is here described There must be for every wooden Funnel a piece of Iron forged flat with a hole in the middle edge-wise which through two slits in the nether-part must play up and down through which a brass-nail must be fastned cast with an head contrary to other nails bowing downwards to which the Iron-pins must be fastned with wyers and so thrust down and plucked up at pleasure And then every end of the flat pieces of Iron must be fastned into a piece of Wood of such thickness that two thereof may fill up the distance between the rows of the wooden Funnels These may be made to play up and down like Virginal-Jacks and when they are lifted up then the brass Funnels being wider above than below give leave for the Corn to fall into the holes all at an instant These Jacks must be fastned together the two first on either side of the wooden Funnels then so many together as the weight of the workmen is able to thrust down to make the holes And there
and very little extraordinary charge expence or hazard First Make a Frame of Timber of about two or three Inches square the breadth of the Frame about two foot the height about eighteen inches the length about four foot more or less as you please place this Frame on two pair of ordinary Wheels like Plough-wheels The Axletree of the two foremost Wheels is to lock to either side as doth the fore Axletree of a Waggon for reasons hereafter shewn the hindermost Axeltree being of Iron and square in the middle must be fixed to the Centre of the Wheels that the Axes and Wheels may move together Then about the middle of the Frame in the bottom let there be fixed an Iron-Instrument or of Wood pointed with Iron like unto a Coulter made a little spreading at the bottom in the nature of a Share made to pass through two Mortoises on the top for its greater strength and made also to be wedged higher or lower according as you will have your furrow in depth the use whereof is only to make the furrow so that you must make the point thereof of breadth only to move the Earth and cast it or force it on either side that the Corn may fall to the bottom of the furrow then over this Share or Coulter a little behinde it may a Wooden-pipe be made to come from the top of the Frame to the lower end of the Share tapering downwards and as near as you can to the Share to deliver the Corn immediately as the ground is opened and before any Earth falls in that what Earth doth afterwards fall in it may fall on the Corn. This Pipe is to proceed out of a large Hopper fixed on the top of the Frame that may contain about a Bushel more or less as you think fit but that the Corn may gradually descend according to the quantity you intend to bestow on an Acre at the very neck of the Hopper underneath in the square hollows thereof must be fitted in the edge of a Wheel of Wood about half an Inch thick and proportionable to the cavity of the neck the Wheel need not be above two or three Inches Diameter and fixed on an Axis extending from one side of the Frame to the other on which Axis is also to be another Wheel with an edge on the Circumference thereof like the wheel of a Spit or Jack which must answer to another Wheel of the like nature form fixed on the Axis of the hindermost Wheels then fit a Line of silk is best because it will not be so apt to shrink and reach as Hemp about these two Wheels that when the Instrument moves on the hindermost Wheels by the means of the line the small Wheel at the neck of the Hopper may also move which lesser Wheel in the neck of the Hopper may have short pieces of thick Leather fixed in the Circumference thereof like unto the teeth of a Jack-wheel that upon its motion it may deduce the Corn out of the Hopper in what proportion you please for in case it comes too fast then may you by a wedge at the Tenon of the piece whereon the Hopper rests or at the end of the Axis of the lesser Wheel like as in a Querne force the Wheel and Hopper together and in case it feeds too slow then may you remove them by the same wedges to a further distance also in case your line be too slack or too hard you may prevent either extreme by a wedge in the place where the Axis of the wheels moves or by a third Wheel about the middle of the line made to move further or nearer as you see cause One Horse and one Man may work with this Instrument and The more particular use and benefit of this Instrument sowe Land as fast or faster than six Horses can Plough so that you may with ease compute the expence in case your Instrument be single but you may in the same Frame have two Shares at twelve inches distance more or less as you will have the rows of Corn distant 1 As to time the one from the other and two Pipes out of the same Hopper and two small Wheels on the same Axis with other Wheels answerable every whit as easie to be performed as one and then may you double your proportion of Land in a day This Instrument will always keep the same proportion you first set him to which you must thus contrive First know the length 2. Equality of Seed of the Furrow you sowe then cast up how many of these Furrows at such distance your Instrument is made for whether a foot more or less will amount unto an Acre then conclude how much to sowe on an Acre as suppose a Bushel then divide that Bushel into so many parts as you have furrows or distances in that Acre then take one or two of those parts and put into your Hopper and observe whether it will hold out or super-abound at the end of one or two Furrows and accordingly proceed and rectifie the Feeder or you may judge by your own reason whether it feed too fast or too slow In case it feeds too fast notwithstanding they be close placed 3 Rectification of the Feeder together then you may make that Wheel at the lower Axis wherein the Line moves to be less than the upper then will the motion be slower And thus may you make it move as slow as you will by augmenting the upper and diminishing the lower Wheels wherein the Line is and make it move faster by the contrary Rule In case you drive apace it feeds apace in case you drive but 4 No difference in driving fast or slow slow it feeds but slowly here is no error When you come to any turning at the Lands-end by lifting up 5 No loss of Seed the hindermost part of the Instrument that those Wheels touch not the ground the feeding of the Corn immediately ceaseth until you set it down again Also all the Corn you sowe lies at one certain depth none too deepâ— nor any too shallow You may place a small kinde of Harrow to follow but the best 6 Needs no harrowing way is to have on each side each Furrow a piece of wood a little broad at the end set aslope to force the Earth rounding on the Corn this may well be placed and fitted to the bottom of this Instrument just behinde the Share and Feeding-pipe By this Method of Sowing any sort of Grain or Pulse may be General Advantages of this Instrument saved the one half and in some places more which by the other way is either buried so deep under Clots that it cannot come up or else is so shallow that the Cold in the Winter or Drought in the Summer killeth it or else lies on the Surface as a prey to the Fowls of the Air Much also thereof falls in clusters twenty or thirty Grains where one or two might
suffice which are common Inconveniences and usually happening to the vulgar way of sowing Corn the greater half by far is lost which in all probability may be saved by the use of this very Instrument which will doubly requite the extraordinary charge and trouble thereof for here is no Corn sowed under Clots but in Rows as the Earth is stirred and moved it is all at one certain depth and at one certain distance and equally covered below the injury of Frost and Heat and Rapine of Birds Also by this way the Corn may be sown in the very middle or convenient depth of the mould that it may have the strength of the Land both below and above the Root which in the other more usual way the Corn falls to the bottom of the Furrow on the Gravel Clay or such-like hard Ground that it seldom thrives so well as what happens to be in the midst This way also exceeds the way of Setting Corn where the Pins thrust into the Ground hardens and fastens the mould that unless the Land be very light it confines the Roots to too narrow a place which in this way is prevented as I have lately observed in Garden-beans that those howed in prove better than those set with a stick By the use of this Instrument also may you cover your Grain or Pulse with any rich Compost you shall prepare for that purpose either with Pigeon-dung dry or granulated or any other Saline or Lixivial Substance made disperseable which may drop after the Corn and prove an excellent Improvement for we finde experimentally that Pigeons-dung sown by the hand on Wheat or Barley mightily advantageth it by the common way of Husbandry much more then might we expect this way where the dung or such-like substance is all in the same Furrow with the Corn where the other vulgar way a great part thereof comes not near it It may either be done by having another Hopper on the same Frame behind that for the Corn wherein the Compost may be put and made to drop successively after the Corn or it may be sown by another Instrument to follow the former which is the better way and may both disperse the Soil and cover both Soil and Seed The Corn also thus sown in Ranges you may with much more conveniencie go between and either weed it or howe it and earth it up as you think good and at Harvest will easily repay the Charges Also the Fore-wheels being made to lock to and fro on either side you may have an upright Iron-pin fixed to the middle of the Axis extended to the top of the Frame and from thence a small Rod of Iron to come to your hand with a crooked neck just against the neck of the Hopper by means of which Iron-rod you may lock or turn the Wheels either way and guide your Instrument and rectifie it if it deviate out of its right course The Hopper must be broad and shallow that the Seed press not much harder when it is full than when it is near empty lest it sowe not proportionably This Instrument although it may at the first seem mysterious and intricate to the ignorant yet I am very confident it will answer to every particular of what I have written of it and any ingenious Wheel-wright Joyner or Carpenter may easily make the same with very little Instruction and any ordinary Plough-man may use it If your Land be either near the Water or Clay or Sand Rock Another excellent Advantage of this Instrument Gravel c. it is not then convenient to sowe the Corn within the Land because it may not have depth for rooting By this Instrument may you then by placing the Share near the top of the Land only to remove as it were the Clots c. drop your Seed in rows and by certain Phins or pieces of Wood or Iron made flat at the end and a little sloping set on each side such Rows of Corn or Grain the Earth may be cast over it and laid in Ridges above the ordinary level of the Land which way I have proved to be very advantageous to Beans laid on a shallow Ground and covered over c. SECT VII Of the General Vses of Corn Grain Pulse and other Seeds propagated by the Plough This is the most general Grain used here in England for Bread Use of Wheat although it be not unfit for most of the uses the other Grains are fit for As for Beer the best Beer to keep hath usually a proportion of Wheat added to the Malt and the Bran also of Wheat a little thereof boyled in our ordinary Beer maketh it mantle or flower in the Cup when it is poured out which sheweth with what a rich spirit Wheat is endowed withal that so much remains in the very Bran. Also Starch is made of musty and unwholesome Wheat and of the Bran thereof than which there are few things whiter It s principal Use is for the making of Beer being the sweetest Of Barley and most pleasant Grain for that purpose it is also one of the best Grains for fatting of Swine especially being either boyled till it be ready to break with no more water than it drinks up or ground in a Mill and wet into a Paste or made into a Mesh either way it produces most excellent sweet Bacon It s general Use is for Bread either of it self or mixed with Of Rye Wheat it makes Bread moist and gives it a very pleasant taste to most Appetites I know no other particular use thereof it being not universally propagated only it 's reported that it yields great store of Spirit or Aqua vitae This is the only Grain for a Horse and best agrees with that Of Oats Beast of any other and in which the Horse most delighteth and is a constant food either for Bread Cakes or Oatmeal to the Scots and several Northern places in England and in some part of Wales Oats also will make indifferent good Malt and a little thereof in strong Beer to be kept is usual They are a Grain that Poultrey also love to feed on and it makes them lay store of Eggs above what other Grain doth The common Use of Pulses are generally known as well for Of Pulses Men as Beasts but there are several that pretend to extract from them excellent Liquors and distil very good Spirits or Aqua Vitae without maulting as one in a certain Tract published by Mr. Hartlib pretends that Rye Oats Pease and the like inferior sort of Grains handled as Barley until it sprout needing not for this work to be dried but beaten and moistened with its own Liquor and soundly fermented will yield a monstrous increase He also affirms that out of one Bushel of good Pease will come of Spirit at the least two Gallons or more which will be as strong as the strongest Anniseed-Water usually sold in London this he affirms to be of the least He
of their Land and that to a very great advantage All manner of Sea-owse Owsy-mud or Sea-weeds or any such-like growing either in the Sea or fresh Rivers whereof there is a very great quantity lost and destroyed are very good for the bettering of Land In Cornwal there is also a Weed called Ore-weed whereof some grows upon Rocks under high Water-marks and some is broken from the bottom of the Sea by rough weather and cast upon the next shore by the Wind and Flood wherewith they Compost their Barly-Land Of Snayl-Cod or Snag-greet It lieth frequently in deep Rivers it is from a Mud or Sludge it is very soft full of Eyes and wrinkles and little shells is very rich some they sell for one shilling two pence the Load another sort they sell for two shillings four pence the 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 had It hath in it many Snails and Shells which is conceived occasioneth the fatness of it I am very credibly informed that an Ingenious Gentleman living Of Oyster-shells near the Sea-side laid on his Lands great quantities of Oyster-shells which made his Neighbours laugh at him as usually they do at any thing besides their own clownish road or custom of ignorance for the first and second years they signified little but afterwards they being so long exposed to the weather and mixed with the moist Earth they exceedingly enriched his Lands for many years after which stands also with reason the Shells of all such Fish being only Salt congealed into such a form which when it is dissolved of necessity must prove fertile There is in most Rivers a very good rich Mud of great fruitfulness Of Mud. and unexpected advantage it costs nothing but labour in getting it hath in it great worth and vertue being the Soil of the Pastures and Fields Commons Roads Ways Streets and Backsides all washed down by the flood and setling in such places where it meets with rest There is likewise very great fertility in the residence of all Channels Ponds Pools Lakes and Ditches where any store of Waters do repose themselves but especially where any store of Rain-water hath a long time setled In Forein parts where Fish are plenty they prove an excellent Of Fish Manure for Land in some places here in England there are plenty of some sorts of Fish and at some seasons not capable of being kept for a Market it were better to make use of them for our advantage than not I presume they are of the best of Soils or Manures but herein I submit to experience Doubtless there is not any thing that proceeds from the Sea or other Waters whether it be Fish or the Garbish of Fish Vegetables Shells Sands or Mud or any such-like dissolving matter but must be of very great advantage to the Husbandman if duly and judiciously applied SECT IV. Of Dungs or Excrementitious Soyls This is the most common of any Dung whatsoever by reason Of Horse dung that Horses are most kept in Stables and their Soil preserved yielding a considerable price in most places the higher the Horses are fed the better is the Dung by far it is the only Dung in use whilest it is new for hot Beds and other uses for the Gardiner Next unto the Horse-dung is Cow-dung whereof by reason of Of Cow or Ox-dung its easie solution hath been made the Water wherein Grain hath been steeped and hath deceived many a plain-meaning Husbandman for there is not that richness nor vertue therein as many judge for that purpose But this together with Horse-dung or other Dung is of very great advantage to Land if it be kept till it be old and not laid abroad exposed to the Sun and Wind as is the practise of the several ignorant Husbands letting of it lie spread on their Field-Lands three or four of the Summer-months together till the Sun and Air hath exhausted all the vertue thereof which if it be laid on heaps with Earth mixed therewith and so let lie till it be rotten it will be the sooner brought to a convenient temper and on Pasture-grounds brings a sweeter Grass and goes much farther than the common way and spread before the Plough produces excellent Corn It is also to be used with Judgment for ordinary Dung used the common way in some years doth hurt and sometimes makes Weeds and trumpery to grow which ordered as before is not so apt for such inconveniences Of all Beasts Sheep Of Sheeps-dung yield the best Dung and therefore is most to be esteemed it is a very high Improvement to the common Field-lands where there is a good Flock duly folded on them especially where it is turned in with the Plough soon after the fold the only way to Improve your Sheeps-dung to the highest advantage is to fold them in a covered fold with intermixture of Earth Sand c. as before and by this means we may make our sheep enrich most of our barren Lands Sheeps-dung is very excellent being dissolved wholly as it will be if well squeezed to steep Grain therein for the Grain doth very eagerly imbibe the whole quantity of the Dung into it self except only here and there a treddle undissolved and proves a great Improvement if rightly ordered Great quantities of this Dung might be obtained if poor Women and Children were imployed to pick up the same on the Rode-ways and burning tops of hills where it seldom doth any good but would prove much more advantageous than the cost or trouble by far This hath in former Ages been esteemed the worst of Dungs Of Swines-dung very hurtful to Corn a breeder of Thistles and other noisome Weeds But our late Husbands whose experience I rather credit than English Improver an old vain Tradition say 't is very rich for Corn or Grass or any Land yea of such account to many ingenious Husbands that they prefer it before any ordinary Manure whatsoever therefore they make their Hog-yards most compleat with an high Pale paved well with Pibble or Gravel in the bottom c. they cast into this yard their Cornish Muskings and all Garbidge and all Leaves Roots Fruits and Plants out of Gardens Courts and Yards and great store of Straw Fearn or Weeds for the Swine to make Dung withal some Hog-yards will yield you forty some sixty some eighty Load of excellent Manure of ten or twelve Swine It 's most likely that this Manure so made by these large additions is more natural and kindly to Land than the bare Swines-dung it self and must of necessity prove a very high advantage considering the despicable vile state of this Beast Some good Daries will make the Soil of their Hog-yard produce them twenty or thirty pounds worth of profit in a year Of the Dung of Fowls
This challengeth the Priority not only of the Dung of Fowl Of Pigeons-dung but of all other Creatures whatsoever Pigeons or Hens-dung is incomparable one Load is worth ten Load of other Dung and therefore it 's usually sown on Wheat or Barly that lieth afar off and not easily to be helped it 's extraordinary likewise on a Hop-garden A Load of Pigeons-dung is more worth than twenty shillings in many parts a very excellent Soil for a cold moist-natured Land I have caused it to be sown by hand after the Grain is sown and in the same manner and then harrowed in with the Grain and received a very great increase on poor Land I have known saith Platt a Load of Pigeons-dung fetched sixteen miles and a Load of Coals given for it which in the Soil where it was fetched would have done more hurt than good for the Manuring of Land yet where it was carried it did as much good for the fertilizing of Land as double the charges In the one Soil it cured the barrenness and in the other it poysoned the fertility This Dung is of less esteem because it is not obtained at so easie Hen-dung a rate and where it is it 's generally little set by because our Fore-fathers did not make any great matter of it and because they understand not the strength and power of it for when they take it out of the houses it 's of a very hot nature and must needs injure some things if laid thereon but if it be mixed well with common Earth Sand or such-like and let lie till it rot well together you will finde it a very rich Manure and of value to answer a great part of your Poultreys expence I have known a Quince-tree whereon Poultrey always pearched that by reason of the Rain washing to its Roots the salt and fatness of the Dung did bear yearly an incredible number of very excellent Quinces This hath been held by the Antients to be most hurtful and unprofitable Of Goose-dung Markham to any Grounds They say that to good Grass they are a great enemy for their Dung and treading will putrifie it and make it worse than barren I have it from a credible hand that Goose-dung is very advantageous to Corn it being discovered by a flock of Geese daily passing over-thwart a Field of Wheat making as it were a Lane over the same in the Winter-time and had nibbled the Wheat clean from the Ground and dunged it where they went in which passage the next year proved to be very gallant Wheat far exceeding any other part of the Field Like unto that I have heard that a Flock of Wild-geese had pitched upon a parcel of green Wheat and had eaten it up clean and sat thereon and dung'd it several nights that the Owner despaired of having any Crop that year but the contrary happened for he had a far richer Stock of Wheat there than any of his Neighbours had in the Land adjoyning to the admiration of all Which demonstrateth that this Dung is of a very hot and fiery nature which occasioneth that barrenness falsly suggested to be in it and being laid abroad thin in the Winter-time proves a very rich Manure and therefore to be esteemed of and being mixed with cooling Earths and let putrifie some time may prove very much for your benefit therefore neglect it not but make several trials the Advantage will be your own The same may be said of the Dung of any other Water-fowl Although that Urines are esteemed to be of a destructive and Of Urines Explicatio Miraculi Mundi p. 50. mortifying nature to Vegetables as Glauber affirms by reason of its Salarmoniacal and burning Spirit that is therein as is evident to our Senses upon the casting of new Urine on Nettles or other Vegetables it soon destroyeth them But it is with this as with many other moist things subject to putrefaction time will digest it and alter the nature and property thereof as it doth Wine or Beer into Vineger so it will of this fiery matter produce an excellent Soil as many have had the experience of Mr. Hartlib testifieth that in Holland they as carefully preserve the Cows Urine as the Dung to enrich their Land Columella in his Book of Husbandry saith That old Vrine is excellent for the Roots of Trees I know a woman saith Mr. Hartlib who lived five miles South of Canterbury who saved in a Pail all the Urine and when the Pail was full sprinkled it on her Meadow which caused the Grass at first to look yellow but after a little time it grew wonderfully Another also saith That Mans Urine is of great worth and will English Improver fatten Land more than you are aware of and it were not ill Husbandry to take all opportunities to preserve it for Land and so of all other Urines after the Dutch manner Humane Ordure ought not here to be omitted as a rich Soil if the Husbandman would be so careful as to place his House of Office that he may once in two or three days add some mixture of Earth Straw Stubble or such-like to reduce it into a necessary Substance portable into his Lands or Grounds remote from his Dwelling where after it hath lain some convenient time in a heap to putrifie together and then thinly dispersed proves an unexpected Advantage SECT V. Of several other Soyls or Manures Ashes contain in them very much of a rich and fertile Salt as Ashes before we noted and therefore not so much to be slighted and neglected as they are be they of what kinde or nature soever Virgil. Ne pudet Effoetos Cinerem immundum jactare per agros The Wood-ashes are the best and very useful yet after they have been used in the Bucking of Clothes they are worth little unless it be in cold and moist Land where I have known them also to avail much Sea-coal ashes with Horse-dung make an excellent Compost for divers uses Turf and Peat-ashes must needs be very rich being much after the same manner as the Burning of Land which most know to be a very great Improvement and whereof we have already treated Ashes are a great Curer of Moss and Rushes in most Grounds The Ashes of any sort of Vegetables are very profitable as divers places in England can testifie by experience who consume their Fearn Stubble Straw Heath Furs Sedge Bean-stalks and the very Sward and Swarth of their Ground to ashes and these according to the store of Salt which their Ashes do contain do either for a longer or shorter time enrich their barren Grounds Mr. Platt highly commends Soap-ashes after the Soap-boylers have made what use of them they please to be a very great enriching to Land and gives you an instance of a Stalk and Ear of Barley of an Ell and three Inches in length that grew on barren Land enriched with Soap-ashes he also saith he found the like success in Pasture-ground In
clay-ground that a Tun of Timber could not be thence haled unless in the dry and Summer-season but that the Wheels would sink in the Clay to the Axle-tree They will also grow though but slowly on the high stony and barren Hills The Acorns or Oaken-Mast being sown in your Nursery after Propagation they are full ripe and before they are withered which will quickly be if they lie open in the Air will the next Spring yield you plenty of young Plants which you may order and transplant as hereafter in the Nursery you shall have Directions Or for expedition-sake you may have young Sets drawn by those that seek the Woods for Quick-sets in such places where Acorns have spontaneously grown and been sheltered from Cattle till they are fit for a remove but these prove generally crooked and ill-shaped and so are to be cut near to the ground when you plant them by which means they will emit another shoot more streight Oaks also prosper very well in Coppices being felled as other Under-woods are It is reported that a Lady in Northamptonshire sowed Acorns and lived to cut the Trees produced from them twice in two and twenty years and both as well grown as most are in sixteen or eighteen Also that Acorns set in Hedge-rows have in thirty years born a Stem of a Foot Diameter The several uses of Oaken Timber for Buildings and other Mechanick Use uses is so universally known that it is but needless to enumerate them To abide all seasons of the weather there is no Wood comparable unto it as for Pales Shingles Posts Rails Boards c. For Water-works also it is second to none especially where it lies obvious to the Air as well as the Water there is no Wood like it For Fewel either as it is or made into Chaâ—coal there is no Wood equals it The Bark also for the Tanner and Dyer exceeds all other Barks the very Saw-dust and ashes also of the Oak challenge a preference the Mast exceeds any other Mast of the Forrest-trees and is of great use to the Husbandman in fatting Swine for in the Forrests and great Woods many herds of Swine are very well fatted in such years that the Oak yields plenty of Mast and that Bacon so fed especially if the Swine are kept up with Pease some time after is the most delicious meat for the Hams we have from Westphalia and other parts of Germany under that name are of those Swine that feed on this Mast for their exercise they of necessity use in searching for these Acorns as well as the natural sweetness of the Fruit it self very much meliorateth the flesh of these Animals as it doth of Deer Hares Conies Pheasants Ducks and many others the flesh of them that are wild being by much to be preferred to the tame The young Boughs of the lopped Oak in the Spring-time are of equal use to the Tanner as is the Bark of this Tree as hath been found by the experience of many Tanners of this Nation within these few years The Elm is one of the most easie Trees to propagate and delighting The Elm. in most sorts of ground except only Land very dry hot and parching shallow Land near Chalk or Gravel on the tops of Hills it thrives not well yet it will grow almost in any place But the places it principally delights in is the level light and loose Land so that it be moist on the Banks of such level and fertile grounds whether they be of Gravel Earth or Chalk the Elm prospers well About the beginning of March fall the seeds of the Elm which Propagation being sown in your Nursery will yield you Plants But the care and trouble thereof is superfluous seeing there are newer and more expeditious and advantageous ways known viz. by the Suckers Which are produced in great plenty from the roots of the Elm and may be transplanted into any places where the Elms grow great plenty of these Suckers will yearly shoot out of the Earth if Cattle be kept from them or if any Elm be felled the old Roots will yield plenty of Suckers or if the old Roots be chopped or slit and slightly covered with light mould they will send forth plenty of Suckers all which may be slipped off and transplanted even unto any bigness there being no Tree more easily transplanted and with good success than the Elm observing these Cautions that if you remove them very young that you cut not off the top because it is sappy and the wet will be apt to get in and decay the Plant being weakened by his removal but the greater you must be sure to disbranch leaving only the stem some cover also the head of such Elm so cut off with a mixture of Clay and Horse-dung I have been very credibly informed that a certain Gentleman in the North-Country having a desire to raise suddenly a Plump or Grove of Trees about his Mansion-house there being a great scarcity of Wood in that place obtained a parcel of Elm-trees lops and tops and made Trenches or Ditches in the Earth and cut his Elm-branches c. into several lengths of six eight ten or twenty feet in length as with best conveniencie he could and buried them singly in the Trenches so digged and covered them wholly from the one end to the other leaving only a hole open about the middle of the interred branch or if it were a long piece then two open places might be left out of which places did spring forth several shoots the first year of a very great length the Winter succeeding he took these branches or shoots all save only the fairest and which was most probable and likely to thrive and so filled up the hole about it by which means they grew to a prodigious height in a few years that his habitation was compleatly adorned with living aspiring products of his ingenious attempt Note that the true time of this Sepulture is when the sap is full in the Tree when the Leaves are newly sprung for then the great quantity of the sap that is in the whole branch forceth it self into those shoots or Cions that then have found a passage also for the succeeding yeers the whole Tree in the Earth becomes a main principal nourishing Root to the nimble growing Tree For it is evident that if an Elm be felled in the Spring-time when the sap is up that then the Tree lying on the ground will spend much of its sap in small shoots in every part of it Much rather if such Tree were buried in a good moist Soil with only one part thereof open to the Air from which part you expect a flourishing shoot to proceed Some have with good success buried such Elm-branches about the end of January or beginning of March but if the Land be not over-dry the later is better If the Elm be felled between November and February it will Use be all Spine or Heart or very little sap
barren dry and sandy grounds The Hasel also Mountains and Rocky Soils produce them but more prosperously in the fresher bottoms and sides of hills and in Hedge-rows They are best raised from the Nut preserved moist not mouldy Propagation by laying them in their own dry leaves or in sand and sown about the latter end of February They are also propagated of Sets and Suckers the young wands by no means to be cut the first year but the Spring following within three or four inches of the ground greater Sets may be cut within six inches of the Earth the first year The use of Hasel-Poles and Rods is generally known to the Use Husbandman besides for Fewel and Charcoal It is the only Plant for the Virgula Divina for the Discovery of Mines It is a good Ornament for Walks and yields a pleasant Fruit but why should we bring this so near us when we have a much more excellent Plant at as easie a rate viz. the Filbert SECT IV. Of Aquaticks or Trees affecting Moist and Watry places The white Poplar delights in moist grounds and near the Margins The Poplar of Rivers but not in the Water as the Willow doth They are usually encreased by the streght branches or pitchers Propagation set in the ground but by no means cut off the top until they have stood two or three years and then head them at eight ten or fifteen foot high or more and they will yield in a few years a very considerable shrowd which shrowds or branches may also be transplanted you may also let them grow upright without topping them they are then more Ornamental but not so beneficial It s White Wood is of singular use for the Turner and also for Use several Rustick Utensils and for the Gardiner It makes also Fewel for the fire This Tree little differs from the Poplar only it will grow not The Aspen only in moist but in dry grounds in Coppices c. is propagated by Suckers but cut not off the tops of the young Cions the first year its use the same with the Poplar The Abele-tree is a finer kinde of white Poplar and is best The Abele propagated of slips from the roots they will likewise grow of layers and cuttings In three years they will come to an incredible altitude in twelve years be as big as your middle and in eighteen or twenty arrive to full perfection This Plant of all other is the most faithful lover of Watery and The Alder. boggy places They are propagated of Truncheons and will come of Seeds Propagation but best of roots being set as big as the small of ones leg and in length about two foot if you plant smaller Sets cut them not till they have stood several years They are a very great Improvement to moist and boggy Land The greater Alders are good for uses under the Water where Use it will harden like a very stone but rots immediately where it is sometimes wet and sometimes dry the Wood is fit for the Turner and several Mechanick uses the Poles and also the Bark are very useful The Withy is a large Tree and fit to be planted on high banks The Withy because they extend their Roots deeper than either Sallies or Willows Sallies grow much faster if they are planted within the reach of The Sally the Water or in a very moorish ground and are an extraordinary Improvement They are smaller than the Sallies and shorter lived and require Osiers constant moisture The Common Willow delights in Meads and Ditch-sides not Willow over-wet They may all be planted by Pitchers as the Poplar those Sets or Pitchers are to be preferred that grow nearest to the stock they should be planted in the first fair weather in February and so till they bud the Osiers may also be planted of slips of two or three years growth a foot deep and half a yard in length in Moorish ground c. The Willow may be planted of stakes as big as ones leg and five or six foot long These Aquatick Trees yield a clean white Wood fit for many Use and benefit uses like unto the Poplar they also yield Poles Binders c. for the Gardiners use the Osier is of great use to the Basket-maker Gardiner Fisherman c. They are all good Fewel and make good Charcoal they are a very great Improvement to Moorish and wet Lands an Acre at eleven or twelve years growth may yield you near an hundred load of Wood no Tree more profitable than some of these Aquaticks according to the nature of the place to be planted upon the edges of Rivers and on Banks Bounds or Borders of Meads or wet Lands they yield a considerable head and ready for shrowding in a few years Mr. Evelin relates that a Gentleman lopped no less than two thousand yearly all of his own planting SECT V. Of other Trees usually planted for Ornament or adorning Gardens Avenues Parks and other places adjoyning to your Mansion-house and convertible also to several uses This Tree is a kind of Maple and delights in a good light Garden-mould The Sycamore and will also thrive in any indifferent Land but rather in moist than dry It 's propagated of the Keys which being It s propagation and use sown when they are ripe and falling from the Trees come up plentifully the next Spring and is a Tree of speedy growth Sets also cut from the Tree will grow set in moist ground or watered well in the Summer they afford a curious dark and pleasant shadow yield a good Fewel and the Timber fit for several Mechanick uses The Lime-tree delights in a good rich Garden-Soil and thrives The Lime-tree Propagation not in a dry hungry cold Land It is raised from Suckers as the Elm or from Seeds or Berries which in the Autumn drop from the Trees We have a sort of Tilia that grows wild here in England which almost equals those brought out of Holland where there are Nurseries to raise them streight and comely This Tree is of all other the most proper and beautiful for Use Walks as producing an upright Body smooth and even Bark ample Leaf sweet Blossom and a goodly shade at the distance of Sylva eighteen or twenty foot their heads topped at about six or eight foot high but if they are suffered to mount without check they become a very streight and tall Tree in a little time especially if they grow near together they afford a very pleasant dark shade and perfume the Air in the months of June and July with their fragrant blossom and entertain a mellifluous Army of Bees from the top of the morning till the cool and dark evening compels their return No Tree more uniform both in its height and spreading breadth I have known excellent Ladders made of Lime-tree-Poles of a very great length the Wood may also serve for several Mechanick uses like
the ground and that slopewise Manner trimming up such as you spare for Standards as you go from their extravagant Branches Water-boughs c. that hinder the growth of others After the Felling and removing of the Wood shut up all the Gaps about the Copse having received a sufficient Hedge about the same before the Spring and so keep it fenced and defended from Cattle till it be above their reach then about July may you put in your Beasts to spend the Herbage in such well-grown Copses If your Copses have been neglected so that they have been browsed by Cattle and kept under that they are not apt to thrive the best way is at felling-time to new cut them and preserve them better from Cattle and they will soon be reduced to a better state than before and thrive beyond expectation When your Timber-Trees are arrived to their perfect age full Felling of Timber-trees growth or best state for at such a time it cannot be esteemed ill-husbandry to take them away so that you be careful to preserve others in their stead though not in their places or that you are necessitated to fell them then consider which way and what time is best for your advantage The time of the year is to be considered of according to the Time occasions or uses you have for your Timber if it be for sale and that your present advantage only you seek then the best time to fell Oak is from mid-April to Mid-summer the Sap being then proud and the Bark easie to be taken off which will yield you a considerable price But all other Timber whilest the Sap is down in the Winter-season If you desire your Oaken Timber for your own proper occasions fell it in December or January when the Tree is clearest of Sap by which means the Timber will not be so much subject to the Worm neither will it cast rift or twine as it will if cut in the Summer It will also last longer in any Buildings and not be so apt to yield under a Burden for the great plenty of Sap mollifies the Timber and makes it rot and decay therefore the cutting of Trees at Barking-time doth very much injure our Timber debilitates our Edifices and expedites their approaching decay Fell not in the increase nor full of the Moon nor in Windy-weather at least in great Winds lest it throw the Tree before you are willing I have seen a good Tree much injured by falling too soon For the Felling of the greater sort of Timber-trees one of the Manner of felling great Trees first and most principal things is the skilful disbranching of the Boal of all such Arms and Limbs as may endanger it in the fall for many excellent Trees have been utterly spoiled for want only of this consideration In the greater Arms chop a nick under it close to the Boal and meet it with the down-right stroke it will be cut without splitting If you reserve the Roots in the Earth in expectation of a new encrease of Suckers then fell the Tree as near the Earth as you can for that is the best Timber But if you intend a total extirpation then grub the Tree which is more for your advantage some advise to Bark the Trees as they stand and the next season to fell them which I take to be worthy of your practise CHAP. VII Of Fruit-trees SECT I. Of the Profits and Pleasures of Fruit-trees THe planting of Fruit-trees is undoubtedly one of the greatest Improvements that can be made of the most part of our English Land as all who have written of Improvents do agree and Worcester-shire Hereford-shire Gloucester-shire Kent and many other particular places in this Land can sufficiently evidence the truth thereof 1. Because it is more universal than many other sorts of Improvements there being but little ground in England but one sort of Fruit or another will prosper upon it if judicially prosecuted The Charge of planting or raising most sort of Fruit-trees being so small and the pains so easie that the most slothful hath not any rational objection against it but the most common is that the poorer sort of people will rob and spoil the Plantations c. If you plant but a few this objection may have place but if you plant any considerable number it will be worth while to attend them at that season which is but short when they are pallatable or to plant such that are not very inviting and yet as profitable to the Planter as the most pleasant And when they become more common they will be little regarded by these Filchers or if they do borrow a few sometimes in their Pockets or to make a few Apple-pies withal yet that is a poor discouragement to an ingenuous Spirit and much like that Rusick Humor of one that would not improve a very good piece of ground for that purpose with Fruit-trees because the Parson would have the decimation of it and so denied himself the nine parts because the Parson should not have the Tenth which indeed is a grand Impediment to Improvement and it is to be wished that there were some more certain Modus in lieu of that troublesome way of Tything This way of Improving by planting of Fruit-trees is more practised within these few years than hath been in Ages before a sufficient Argument of the benefit the Country-man receives by it The Computation may be taken from the expence of the young Trees especially of Syder-fruit that our Nurseries have annually yielded throughout the greatest part of this Kingdom 2. The use of Fruits is also universal both for meat and drink That there cannot be an over-stocking of the Country with them especially of Syder-fruits This drink being more universally celebrated than any other as the most pleasant being of good Fruits and rightly prepared the most healthy and the most durable of any other and must necessarily bring a very considerable advantage to the whole Kingdom in general because a far greater quantity of Syder is usually produced out of an Acre of Land in one year than can be made of the Barly growing on an Acre and much less cost and trouble in the preparation so that if but a small part of every Farm were planted for Syder much of the Barley-land might be converted to other uses which in the end would be a National Improvement and advantage It will also lessen that vast consumption we make of French-Wines which we drink to the enriching of a Foreiner the impoverishing of our selves and the great prejudice of our healths especially by the corroding Claret and stummed White-Wines when we have a thousand Testimonies that English Syder is to be preferred before any French-Wines and known to be more Homogeneal to our Natures Mr. Hartlib in his Legacie tells you of the benefits of Orchard-fruits that they afford curious Walks for pleasure food for Cattle in the Spring Summer and Winter meaning under their shadow Fewel for
facility from Layers Slips or Suckers than from Graffing Inoculation or from the Seed and such are Codlings Gennet-Moyls Quinces Filberds Vines Figs Mulberries Goosberries Currans and Barberries The Kentish Codling is very easily propagated by slips or Codlings suckers and is of so good a nature as to thrive being set very near that they make a very ornamental hedge which will bear plentifully and make a most pleasant prospect the fruit whereof besides the ordinary way of stewing baking c. being very early makes a delicate Cider for the first drinking These Trees ought not to be topt or plashed as is usual they growing tall and handsom which if topt decay and grow stubby and unpleasant neither do they bear so well The Gennet-Moyl-Tree will be propagated by Slips or Cions Gennet-Moyls as is the Codling but is not so apt to grow in a hedge as the other Both of them bear sooner if grafted as other Apples are The manner of raising the Quince we have already discoursed Quinces where we treated of raising Stocks to Graff on Filberds are generally drawn as Suckers from the old Trees Filberds and will prosper very well and sooner come to be Trees than from the Nut. Any shoot of the last year more especially if a short piece of The Vine the former years growth be cut with it will grow being laid about a foot or eighteen inches within the ground long-ways and not above two or three Buds at most out of the ground about the moneth of February and watred well in the drought of Summer The Fig-tree yieldeth Suckers which is the usual way to multiply Figs. them The Mulberry is a very difficult Tree to raise and is best done Mulberries thus Cut a Bough off as big as a mans Arm and cut it in pieces a yard long or less lay all these in the ground a foot deep only one end out of the ground about a hands breadth let it be in fat and moist ground or usually watred and after a year or two divers young Springs may be drawn with Roots and planted at a distance and the old Roots will yet send out more These three kinds of Fruits yield such plenty of Suckers that Gooseberries Currans and Barberries To lay the Branches of Trees you never need doubt of a supply But if you desire Plants from the same or any other sorts of precious Fruits or Plants and where you cannot obtain Suckers from the Roots and where the branches will not easily take root being separated from the Tree you may obtain your desire by bending down some branch of the Tree to the ground and with a hooked stick thrust into the ground stay the same in its place and cover the same branch with good Earth as thick as you shall think fit and keep the same well watred or if you cannot bring the branch to the Earth you may have some Earthen pot Basket or such like with a hole in the bottom and fasten the same to the wall if against a wall or on some Post or Stake Put the Sprig or Branch you intend to plant through at the hole and fill the same with good Earth and water it often as before Some prick the Rinde that is in the Earth full of holes that it may the better issue thereout small Roots others advise to cut away the Bark This may be done in the Spring from March to May and the Plant will be fit to cut off below the Earth the Winter following By this means you may obtain the Plants of Vines Mulberries or any manner of choice Fruits or Plants SECT IX Of the Transplanting of Trees The best and most successful time for the transplanting or removing 1 The time to transplant of Trees such that shed their leaves in the Winter whether they are the young Stocks or new Graffed Trees or of longer standing is in the Autumnal Quarter when the Trees have done growing about the end of September you may begin the prime time is about the middle of October You may continue till the Tree begins to bud if the weather be open Be careful in taking up the Plants that requiring great care of 2 The manner of transplanting the Remover See the Roots be left on as much as may especially the spreading Roots and let the Roots be larger than the head the more ways they spread the better but you may take away such Roots as run downwards Also take off the leaves if any lest they weaken the Branches by extracting the Sap. The younger and lesser the Tree is the more likely he is to thrive and prosper because he suffers less injury by the removal than an older or greater Tree And an Orchard of young Trees will soon overtake another planted with larger Trees at the same time Plant not too deep for the Over-turf is always richer than the next Mould And in such places where the Land is Clayish over-moist or Spewy plant as near the Surface as you can or above it and raise the Earth about the Tree rather than set the Tree in the wet or Clay The same Rule observe in Gravelly or Chalky Land for the Roots will seek their way downwards but rarely upwards That I have known Trees planted too deep pine away and come to nothing This Rule observed many places may be made fruitful Orchards that now are judged impossible or not worth ones while In the transplanting of your young Trees you may Prune as well the branches as the roots taking away the tops of the branches of Apples and Pears but not of Plums Cherries nor of Wall-nuts The Coast also is necessary to be observed especially if the Tree be of any considerable bigness that the same side may stand South that was South before the Tree will thrive the better Although in small Trees it be not much observed yet it might prove none of the least helps to its growth and thriving The most facile way to preserve the memory of its scituation is to mark the South or North side of the Plant with Oker Chalk or such like before you remove it It is not a small check to a Plant to be removed out of a warm Nursery into the open Field where the Northern and Eastern Winds predominate or its shelter to be removed as by the cutting down of Hedges and other Trees that formerly defended them It is also very necessary to be observed that the ground into which you plant your Tree be of a higher and richer Mould than from whence you removed it if you expect your Tree to thrive the change of Soyls or Pastures from the worser to the better being of very high concernment for the improvement and advance of all Vegetables and Animals These and several other the like Observations if they can be observed will much advantage the growth of your Tree for the first year or two but if place and time and other accidents
be well placed to the Wall for if any branch happen to be wreathed or bruised in the bending or turning which you may not easily perceive although it doth grow and prosper for the present yet it will decay in time the Sap or Gum will also spew out in that place By neglect of this Observation many seeming fair Trees decay in several parts when the Husbandman is ignorant of the cause In Pruning the Vine leave some new branches every year and take away if too many some of the old which much advantageth the Tree and encreaseth its fruit When you cut your Vine leave two knots and cut at the next interval for usually the two Buds yields a bunch of Grapes I have observed Vines thus pruned to bear many fair bunches when cut close as usually is done for Beauty sake which by the Husbandman is not in this case to be regarded the Tree hath been almost barren of Fruit. When you cut any Pithy Tree the Vine especially make your Lance if the Sprig be upright on the North-side if sloping then make your Lance under or on one side that the wet or Rain lodge not on it nor decay the Pith which usually damnifies the next Bud and sometimes more SECT XI Other necessary Observations about Fruit-trees Where the ground is shallow or lieth near Gravel Clay Stone 1 Of the raising of Land or Chalk or near the Water take the top of one half of the same Land and lay it on the other in Ridges abating the intervals like unto Walks and plant the Trees on the midst of the Ridges by which means they will have double the quantity of Earth to root in that they had before and the Walks or Intervals preserve the Ridges from superfluous moisture It hath been found an approved Remedy in dry shallow Land as well as in low wet Land It hath been observed that Pear-trees will thrive and prosper Pear-trees in cold moist hungry stony and gravelly Land where Apples will not bear so well The Roots of such Trees that thrive not nor bear well may 2 Of the ordering the Roots of old Trees be laid open about November and if the ground be poor and hungry then towards the Spring apply good fat Mould thereto but if the ground be over-fat and rich that the Tree spends it self in Branches and Leaves with little Fruit then apply to the Roots Ashes or Lime or any of the Composts that are salt hot and dry mixed with the Earth which contain more of fertility than the ordinary Dung Also laying store of any manner of Vegetables all the Summer about the roots of Fruit-trees to kill the Grass and Weeds growing about the Tree it keeps the ground moist and cool and adds much to the flourishing and fertility of the Tree and is the best Natural Remedy against the Moss so that it lye not too near the Tree to decay the Bark thereof Digging or Ploughing about the Roots of Fruit-trees adds much to their fertility and prevents the Moss in most Trees Stones laid in heaps about the Roots preserves them cool and moist in the Summer and warm in Winter and is of great use and concernment to the fertility and advance of the growth of Fruit-trees The ground wherein you plant your Fruit-trees if you finde it 3 Alteration of ground not suitable to the Nature of the Tree may be several ways altered as before and by the applying of Earth Clay or Sand of a divers Nature from the ground where the Tree grows If your Orchard or Garden be not naturally well scituate and 4 Defending Trees from Winds defended from the injurious winds by Hills or Woods or that Buildings Barns Walls or such like are not conveniently scituate near to preserve it it is of great advantage to raise a perpetual lasting and pleasant shelter by planting a compleat Thorn-hedge about the same at the time or in that Year you White-thorn first plant your Orchard or Garden which will grow in a few years to a considerable height and very much break the cold winds and preserve the smaller and lower part of the greater Trees in their blossoming and kerning time from the nipping winds But for that that the principallest parts of the greater Trees exceed the Summity of the White-thorn the Wallnut-tree Wallnut-tree raised in time on the borders or naked sides of the Orchard or Garden and if you can on the out-sides of the Fences will prove a Noble and profitable defence from the furious winds If you regard not the Fruit or profit so much as the pleasure and sudden rise of such a defence that which is most facile and expeditious to be raised is the Poplar which may be planted poplar near together and ten or fifteen foot in height the first year which will prove and thrive wonderfully especially if the ground be any whit inclineable to moisture Or the Lime-tree if you can conveniently obtain them make Lime-tree a close and secure defence from the winds and of all other is the most odoriferous regular and delicious verdant pale to a Garden or Orchard The Sycamore and the Elm also are not to be rejected only the Elm hath an ill name as being subject to raise or attract Blights At the removal of Trees the trimmings of the roots planted 5 Raising Stocks or rather buried in the ground within a quarter of an inch or little more of the level of the Bed will sprout and grow to be very good Stocks Pigeons dung or the dung of Poultry or any Fowl being of 6 Soyl for Fruit-trees a hot dry and salt Nature hath been experimentally found to be the Soyl most conducing to fertility for Fruit-trees especially in cold grounds It is usual to select aspiring Trees and to expect the fairer 7 Height of Trees Trees because taller and better and more Fruit than those that are low T is true the more remote the branches are from the Earth the less are they subject to the injuries of Cattel or the Fruit to light fingers But the lower the Tree brancheth it self and spreads the fairer and sooner will it attain to be a Tree and the greater burthen will it bear of Fruit and those better and larger The Tree and Fruit will also be less obvious to the furious winds which make havock most years of a great part of our stock and in the Spring the new-kerned Fruit will be more within the shelter of the Natural or Artificial Securities from the nipping cold morning Breese and the Fruit when ripe and apt to fall will not receive so great injury from the humble as from the aspiring Tree Sed medio Virtus As the tall Tree is not for your advantage so the Tree that 's too low is not for your conveniency I aim not at Extremes In many places Fruit-trees are much injured by Moss it rarely 8 Diseases of Trees Moss grows on Trees where the
directions as you will hereafter finde Disperse the Poles among the hills before you begin to Pole laying of them between the hills Begin not to Pole until your Hops appear above the ground that you discern where the biggest Poles are required and so may you continue Poling till they are a Yard in height or more but stay not too long lest you hinder the growth of the Hop which will grow large unless it hath a Pole or such like to climb unto Set the Pole near to the hill and in depth according to the height of the Pole nature of the ground and obviousness to winds that the Pole may rather break than rise out of the ground by any fierce winds Let the Poles lean outward the one from the other that they may seem to stand equi-distant at the top to prevent Housling as they term it which they are subject unto if they grow too near the one from the other that is they will grow one amongst another and cause so great a shade that you will have more Hawm than Hops Also it is esteemed an excellent piece of Husbandry to set all the Poles inclining towards the South that the Sun may the better compass them This is most evident that a leaning or bending Pole bears more Hops than an upright Be sure to reserve a parcel of the worst Poles that you may have for your need in case when the Poles are laden a Pole may break or be over-burthened to support it for if they lie on the ground they soon perish With a Rammer you may ram the Earth at the out-side of the Pole for its further security against winds If after some time of growing you finde a Hop under or over-poled you may unwinde the Hop and place another Pole in its place having a Companion with you to hold the Hop whilest you pitch in the Pole or else you may place another Pole near it and bring the Hop from one Pole to the other The next work is after the Hops are gotten two or three foot Of tying of Hops to the Poles out of the ground to conduct them to such Poles as you think fit that are either nearest or have fewest Hops and winde them or place them to the Pole that they may winde with the course of the Sun and binde them gently thereto with some withered Rush or woollen Yarn two or three strings are enough to a Pole I have known more Hops on a Pole from one string than from four or five though there hath been more of Hawm Be cautious of breaking the tender Shoots which in the morning is most dangerous but when the warmth of the day hath toughned them may it much better be done You must be daily amongst the Hops during April and May especially guiding and directing them else will they be apt to break their own Necks by going amiss It will sufficiently requite your labour and care at Harvest It is convenient with a forked Wand to direct the Hops to the Poles that are otherwise out of reach or to have a stool to stand on or a small Ladder made with a stay on the back of it that you may reach them with your hands About Midsummer or a little after the Hop begins to leave running at length and then begins to branch that such Hops that are not yet at the tops of the Poles 't were not amiss to nip off the top or divert it from the Pole that it may branch the better which is much more for the encrease of the Hop than to extend it self only in length Sometimes in May after a Rain pare off the Surface of the Of the making up the Hills ground with a Spade How it off with a How or run it over with a Plough with one horse if you have room enough or with a Breast-plough and with these parings raise your hills in height and breadth burying and suppressing all superfluous Shoots of Hops and weeds By this means you will destroy the weeds that otherwise would beggar your Land and you suppress such Suckers and weeds that would impoverish your Hops and you also preserve the hills moist by covering them that the drought of the Summer injureth them not Also the Hop so far as it is covered with Earth issues forth its roots to the very surface of the Earth which proves a very great succour to the Hop This work may be continued throughout the Summer but more especially after a Rain to apply the moist Earth about the roots of the Hop Therefore it behoveth you to keep the ground in good heart for this purpose that your Hops may be the better and in case it should prove a very dry Spring it would not be amiss to water the Hops before you raise your hills A dry Spring such that happened in the Years 1672. and Manner of watering Hops 1674. proves a great check to the hop in its first springing especially in hot and dry grounds In such Years it is very advantagious to water them if it can with conveniency be obtained either from some Rivulet or Stream running through or near your Hop-garden or from some Well digged there or out of some Pond made with Clay in the lower part of your ground to receive hasty showres by small Aqueducts leading unto it which is the best water of all for this purpose In the midst of every hill make a hollow place and thrust some pointed Stick or Iron down in the middle thereof and pour in your water by degrees till you think the hill is well soaked then cover the hill with the parings of your Garden as before we directed which will set the Hop mainly forward as I have known which otherwise would be small and weak and hardly ever recover to attain its usual height Also a very hot and dry Summer will make the Hop blow but small and thin therefore would it not be labour lost to bestow a pail of water on every hill prepared before-hand to receive it For in such dry Springs or Summers such Hops that either stand moist or have been watred do very much out-strip their Neighbours and in such years they will far better requite your labour and industry yielding a greater price by reason of their scarcity than in other seasonable years when every ground almost produceth Hops Industry and Ingenuity in these Affairs being most incouraged and best rewarded at such times when Ignorance and Sloth come off with loss and shame After every watering which need not be above twice or thrice in the driest Summers so that they be throughly wet be sure to make up the hills with the parings and with the weeds and coolest and moistest materials you can get for the more the Hop is shaded at the root from the Sun the better it thrives as is evident by such that grow under shelter that are never drest yet may compare with those you bestow most pains and skill on The dressing
they will bear heads the Autumn following They are to be planted four or five foot distance the one from the other if the Soyl be rich but if it be not then nearer After the Planting they need no other Culture before Winter save only Weeding and dressing sometimes and a little water if the Spring be dry Against the Winter before the great Frosts they are to be preserved Preservation against Frosts against them Some cut the leaves within a foot of the ground and raise the Earth about them in manner of a Mole-hill within two or three inches of the top and then cover it with Long-dung which both preserves them from Frosts and keeps the Rain from rotting them Others put Long-dung about the Plants leaving the Plant a little Breath-room in the middle which will also do very well Others prescribe them to be covered with an Earthen-pot with a hole at the top but a Bee-hive is to be preferred before it It is not good to Earth them too soon left it rot them The Winter spent you shall uncover your Artichoaks by little Dressing Artichoaks and little at three several times with about four days interval each time lest the cold Ayr spoil them being yet tender you shall then dress dig about and trim them very well discharging them from most of their small slips not leaving above three of the strongest to each foot for Bearers and give a supply to the Roots as deep as conveniently you can of good fat Mould It will be good to renew your whole Plantation of Artichoaks every fifth year because the Plant impoverishes the Earth and produces but small Fruit. If you desire to have Fruit in Autumn you need only cut the Stem of such as have born Fruit in the Spring to hinder them from a second Shoot and in Autumn these lusty Stocks will not fail of bearing very fair Heads provided that you dress and dig about them well and water them in their necessity taking away the Slips which grow to their Sides and which draw all the substance from the Plants This Plant seems to contend for Preheminence with any of Of Asparagus the Garden-plants for the Kitchin being so delicate and wholesome a food coming so early and continuing so long as to usher in many other of the best Rarities They are raised of seeds in a good fat Soyl and at two years Planting of them growth may be transplanted into Beds Which must be well prepared with Dung first digged about two foot deep and four foot wide made level at the bottom and so mix very good rotten Dung with some of the Mould and fill them up considering that it will sink Then plant your Asparagus Plants at about two foot distance you may plant three or four Rows in this Bed of four foot wide they will in time extend themselves throughout all the Bed Some curious persons put Rams-horns at the bottom of the Trench and hold for certain that they have a kinde of Sympathy with Asparagus which makes them prosper the better but it 's referred to the Experienced Three years you must forbear to cut that the Plant may be Ordering and cutting of them strong not stubbed for otherwise they will prove but small but if you spare them four or five years you will have them as big as Leeks The small ones you may leave that the Roots may grow bigger permitting those that spring up about the end of the Season in every Bed to run to Seed and this will exceedingly repair the hurt which you may have done to your Plants in reaping their Fruit. At the beginning of the Winter after you have cut away the Stalks cover the Bed four or five fingers thick with new Horse-dung Some prescribe with Earth four fingers thick and over that two fingers of old dung which will preserve them from the Frost At the Spring about the middle of March uncover the Beds and take of good fat Mould and spread over them about two or three fingers thick and lay your Dung in the Alleys or elsewhere which will rot and be fit to renew the Mould the next Spring If you take up the old Roots of Asparagus about the beginning Early Asparagus of January and plant them on a hot Bed and well defend them from Frosts you may have Asparagus at Candlemas which is yearly experimented by some When you cut Asparagus remove a little of the Earth from about them lest you wound the others which are ready to peep cut them as low as you can conveniently but take heed of hurting those that lie hid There are divers sorts of this most pleasant and delicious Fruit Strawberries and not any of them but are worthy of our care and that little pains they require in Nursing them up The greater sort delight in a new-broken Bed or at least in such places where they have not grown before They must be kept stringed and removed every two or three years and then will yield a very great encrease They delight most in warm sandy Soyl the best Plants are said to be such as come of the Strings they bear best in the shade The white Strawberry and the ordinary red may be either planted in Beds or on the sides of the Banks at your pleasure The ordinary red grows plentifully in the new-fallen Copses from whence if you take your Plants about August you will have a very fair encrease There is a sort of green Strawberry though not usual that lies on the ground under the tall and slender leaves exceeding sweet in taste and of a very green colour Also there is another sort of Strawberry of a very excellent Scarlet-colour and most pleasant taste that grows plentifully in New-England and will prosper very well with us as is experienced by a Merchant at Clapham near London who hath many of them growing in his Garden To preserve them over the Winter though they seldom die you strow a little Straw Litter Fern or suchlike over them To have Strawberries in Autumn you may only cut away the Late Strawberries first blossoms which they put forth and hinder their bearing in the Spring and they will afterwards blow anew and bear in their latter season I have gathered many on Michaelmas-day As soon as your Strawberries have done bearing cut them Large Strawberries down to the ground and as often as they spire crop them till towards the Spring When you would have them proceed towards bearing now and then as you cut them strew the fine Powder of dried Cow-dung or Pigeons-dung or Sheeps-dung c. upon them and water them when there is cause The Cole-flower is an excellent Plant and deserves a place in the Kitchin-garden their seeds are brought out of Italy and the Italians receive it from Candia and other of the Levantine parts which is the best and produces the largest Heads You may either sow the seeds in August and carefully
much break the Winds and these shelving sides will much expedite the ripening of Pease or other Fruits by receiving more directly the Beams of the Sun and in case the ground be over-moist you may plant the higher and if over-dry then the lower so that it seems to remedy all Extreams except Heat which rarely injures To make a hot Bed in February or earlier if you please for The making of hot Beds the raising of Melons Cucumbers Radishes Coleflowers or any other tender Plants or Flowers you must provide a warm place defended from all Winds by being inclosed with a Pale or Hedge made of Reed or Straw about six or seven foot high of such distance or capacity your occasions require within which you must raise a Bed of about two or three foot high and three foot over of new Horse-dung of about six eight or ten days old treading it very hard down on the top being made level and if you will edged round with boards lay of fine rich Mould about three or four inches thick and when the extream heat of the Bed is over which you may perceive by thrusting in your finger then plant your seeds as you think fit then erect some Forks four or five inches above the Bed to support a Frame made of sticks and covered with Straw to defend the Seed and Plants from cold and wet only you may open your Covering in a warm day for an hour before Noon and an hour after Remember to Earth them up as they shoot in height when they are able to bear the cold you may transplant them Many curious and necessary Plants would suffer were they Of Watering of Plants not carefully watered at their first removal or in extream dry seasons therefore this is not to be neglected Early in the Spring whilest the Weather is cold be cautious of watering the leaves of the young and tender Plant only wet the Earth about it When your Plants or Seeds are more hardy and the Nights yet cold water in the Fore-noons but when the Nights are warm or the days very hot then the Evening is the best time If you draw your water out of Wells or deep Pits it ought to stand a day in the Sun in some Tub or suchlike for your tender Plants in the Spring But Pond or River or Rain-water needs it not and is to be preferred before Well-water or Spring-water If you infuse Pigeons-dung Sheeps-dung Hen-dung Ashes Lime or any fat soil or matter in your water either in Pits Cisterns or other Vessels for that purpose and therewith cautiously water your Plants it will much add to their encrease and multiplication For Cole-flowers Artichoaks and such like let the ground sink a little round the Plant in form of a shallow Dish the water will the better and more evenly go to the Roots Water not any Plant over-much lest the water carry with it away the Vegetative or fertil Salt and so impoverish the ground and also chill the Plant. It is also better to water a Plant seldom and throughly than often and slenderly for a shallow watering is but a delusion to the Plant and provokes it to root shallower than otherwise it would and so makes it more obvious to the extremity of the Weather If you are willing to have the ground always moist about any Plant place near it a Vessel of water putting therein a piece of Woollen Cloth or List and let the one end thereof hang out of the Vessel to the ground the other end in the water in manner of a Crane Let the List or Cloth be first wet and by this means will the water continually drop till all be dropped out of the Vessel which may then be renewed The end that hangs without the Vessel must be always lower than the water within the Vessel else it will not succeed If it drop not fast enough encrease your List or Cloth if too fast diminish it If the Weather be never so dry when you sow any sort of Seeds water them not till they have been in the ground several days and the ground a little setled about them CHAP. IX Of several sorts of Beasts Fowls and Insects usually kept for the Advantage and Vse of the Husbandman OUR Country-Farm is of little use and benefit to us notwithstanding all our care pains and cost in Fencing Planting or otherwise ordering the same unless it be well stocked and provided with Beasts and other Animals as well for labour and strength in Tilling and Manuring the Ground and facilitating other Labours and Exercises as for the furnishing the Market and Kitchin SECT I. Of Beasts The Horse hath the Preheminence above all others being the Of the Horse Noblest Strongest Swiftest and most necessary of all the Beasts used in this Country for the Saddle for the Plough and Cart and for the Pack Where you have good store of Pasture either in Several or in Common or in Woods or Groves it is no small advantage to keep a Team of Mares for the Breed but where there is most of Arable and little of Pasture-Land Horses or Geldings are more necessary which difference we may observe between the great Breeding-places for Horses in the Pastures and Wood-lands and the naked Corn-Countries the one full of gallant lusty Mares the other of Horses and Geldings As to the Shape and Proportion Colours Age Ordering Breeding Feeding and Curing the several Diseases of Horses I shall here be silent and refer you to the several Authors who have copiously treated of that Subject it being too large for this place Asses are commonly kept yet not to be little set by because of Of the Ass their sundry Commodities and the hardness of their Feeding for this poor Beast contents himself with whatsoever you give him Thistles Bryars Stalks Chaff whereof every Country hath store is good Meat with him Besides he may best abide the ill looking to of a negligent Keeper and be able to sustain blows labour hunger and thirst being seldom or never sick and therefore of all other Cattle longest endureth for being a Beast nothing chargeable he serveth for a number of necessary uses in carrying of Burdens he is comparable to the Horse he draweth the Cart so the Load be not great for grinding in the Mill he passeth all others Thus far Haresbatch The Milk also of the Ass is esteemed an excellent Restorative by most Learned Physitians in a Consumption But I presume one main impediment of their not being so frequently kept is their destructive Nature to Trees which they will bark with their mouths where they can come at them This is no ways pleasing to a good Husband The Mule or Moil is bred of a Mare covered with an Ass Of the Male. It 's a hardy Beast much better than an Ass and very tractable and capable of much service These worthy sort of Beasts are in great request with the Husbandman Of Cows and Oxin the Oxe
the Hive that was first filled away for your use and have also described unto us the particular ways of ordering these new-invented Hives and how every particular thing is to be done as though the Authors thereof had had long experience in it which hath incouraged many to the prosecution of the designe Which I finde to deceive us in several particulars for the Bees build Combs only at the former part of the Summer and after they have prepared sufficient Receptacles wherein to dispose their Honey and answerable to their number their matter also being much wasted which they gather abroad for the making of their Combs they then fall to work for the storing of their Cells with food for the approaching Winter so that whatever room you give them more seems superfluous and rather proves a burthen than an advantage unto them The next year also it 's in vain to give them more room unless it be to a Young Stock that could not or had not time enough to build sufficient the precedent Year or to an Old Stock that was streightned in room before as usually our Swarming Stocks are Also when you expect to take the top or fullest Combs you will finde the Bees most there for they will not as some fondly imagine desert the more remote and lie in the nearer Combs but on the contrary as I have often found But that which seems to me the most probable way for I have not yet fully experienced it is to make your Hives very small either the one over the other or the one behinde the other and if you finde they have a sufficient stock of Honey to preserve them in the remainder you may take the most remote Box or Hive and place it the nethermost and so drive the Bees into the other but this also must be submitted to farther Tryals To conclude from what we have before treated I judge it the most prudential way to have in your Apiary a sufficient stock of Bees kept for breeding and swarming and another stock kept in large Glass-hives whereof we have before discoursed for the raising of great quantities of Honey which they will much better do in those Hives and I see no reason why we should judge it a greater piece of cruelty or inhumanity to take away the lives of these Creatures who have so short and insensible a life and die so easily for their Honey than to take away the lives of any other Animals to feed on their Carkasses which is daily done and that with very high degrees of torture Neither can it be any loss to the Bee-master who may have an Annual supply by his swarming-stocks kept for that purpose as the great Flocks of Weathers are yearly supplied from the Flocks of Ewes and the large and vast fatning Ponds of Carps from the lesser breeding Ponds Sed si jam proles subito defecerit omnis Virgil. Nec genus unde novae stirpis revocetur habebit Which rarely happens to a careful Bee-master but if it should Tempus Arcadii memoranda inventa Magistri Idem Pandere then may you experiment the Invention of the Athenian Bee-Master Generation of Bees in Virgil wherewith in effect agrees the Experiment of our Modern and great Husbandman old Mr. Carew of Cornwal which is thus Take a Calf or Steer of a year old about the latter end of April bury it eight or ten days till it begin to putrifie and corrupt then take it forth of the Earth and opening it lay it under some hedge or wall where it may be most subject to the Sun by the heat whereof it will a great part of it turn into Maggots which without any other care will live upon the remainder of the corruption After a while when they begin to have wings the whole putrified Carkass would be carried to a place prepared where the Hives stand ready to which being perfumed with Honey and sweet Herbs the Maggots after they have received their wings will resort Quis Deus hanc Musae quis nobis excudit Artem Virgil. Vnde nova ingressus hominum experientia caepit Or if you are unwilling either to credit or make tryal of this Experiment you may purchase a new stock of your Neighbours if not with Money which is connted unfortunate yet with the exchange of other Commodities But what need we make provision against so improbable and unlikely accidents For the trying of Honey and Wax we will leave to the Experienced There are several ways of making curious Drinks or Liquors Making of Metheglin out of Honey some make it white and clear not only by the pureness and fineness and whiteness of the Honey but also by some particular Process or Art they have Others make it very good yet partly by reason of the nature and colour of the Honey and partly for want of judgment it carries with it a more gross and red tincture but if the Honey be good the tincture cannot be much injurious to the Drink Concerning the making whereof we have met with some few Directions which we shall here insert A Receipt to make a pure Mead that shall taste like Wine Take one part of Clarified Honey and eight parts of pure Water and boil them well together in a Copper Vessel till half the Liquor is boiled away but while it boils you must take off the Scum very clean and when it hath done boiling and begins to cool Tun it up and it will work of it self As soon as it hath done working you must stop the Vessel very close and bury it under ground for three Moneths which will make it loose both the smell and taste of the Honey and Wax and will make it taste very like Wine Another Proportion Take of Honey Clarified twenty pound and of clear Water thirty two Gallons mingle them well together and boil that Liquor half away and take off the Scum very clean c. and if you will have it of an Aromatick taste you may add this proportion of Ingredients Viz. Flowers of Elder Rosemary and Marjerom of each an handful of Cinamon two ounces of Cloves six ounces of Ginger Pepper and Cardamom each two scruples These will give it a pleasant taste Another Proportion thus To a dozen Gallons of the scummed Must take Ginger one ounce Cinamon half an ounce Cloves and Pepper of each alike two drams all gross beaten the one half of each being sowed in a bag the other loose and so let it boil a quarter of an hour more Some mix their Honey and Water till it will bear an Egg by which Rule you may make it stronger or smaller at pleasure Another Proportion of Ingredients To sixteen Gallons of Must take Thime one ounce Eglantine Marjerom Rosemary of each half an ounce Ginger two ounces Cinamon one ounce Cloves and Pepper of each half an ounce all gross beaten the one half boiled in a bag the other loose c. Note That all
security to the Winder the Method being usual needs no description here 2. By bringing water in Pipes or Gutters which is easily done the Spring or Stream from whence you bring it being somewhat higher than the place where you desire it 3. By raising water by Forcers Pumps or Water-wheels many and several are the Inventions whereby to effect it but none more easie plain and durable than the Persian-wheel before-mentioned in the Chapter concerning the watering of Meadows 4. By making of Cisterns or Receptacles for water either for the Rain or some Winter-springs to fill them whereby the water may be kept throughout the Summer In this are we very deficient for on the Mountainous dry and upland parts of Spain they have no other water than what they so preserve from the Rain It being the Custom in France where in many places water is scarce to preserve their waters in Cisterns as the French Rural Poet advises That if the place you live in be so dry That neither Springs nor Rivers they are nigh Then at some distance from your Garden make Within the Gaping Earth a spacious Lake That like a Magazine may comprehend Th' assembled Flouds that from the Hills descend And all the bottom pave with Chalkie Lome c. Also in Amsterdam and Venice they keep their rain-Rain-water in Cellars made on purpose for Cisterns capacious enough to contain water for the whole year it being renewed as oft as the Rain falls Why therefore may we not here in England on our driest hills make places Pools or Cisterns sufficient to contain water enough for our Cattle for our Domestick uses and also for our Garden-occasions if we were but diligent few years there are but yield us plenty of showres to supply them though not enough to supply the defect of them much more Rain falling here than on the Continent where those Pools and Cisterns are more used for which cause this Island is by them termed Matula Coeli and yet have we so many thousands of Acres of dry Lands uninhabited untilled and almost useless unto us from this only cause and have so easie means to remedy it If you designe to make your Cisterns under your house as a How to make Cisterns to hold Water Cellar which is the best way to preserve it for your Culinary uses then may you lay your Brick or Stone with Tarris and it will keep water very well or you may make a Cement to joynt your Stone or Brick withal with a Composition made of slacked and sifted Lime and Linseed-Oyl tempered together with Tow or Cotten-Wooll Or you may lay a Bed of good Clay and on that lay your Bricks for the Floor then raise the wall round about leaving a convenient space behinde the wall to ram in Clay which may be done as fast as you raise the wall So that when it is finished it will be a Cistern of Clay walled within with Brick and being in a Cellar the Brick will keep the Clay moist although empty of water that it will never crack This I have known to hold water perfectly well in a shadowy place though not in a Cellar Thus in any Gardens or other places may such Cisterns be made in the Earth and covered over the rain-Rain-water being conveyed thereto by declining Channels running unto it into which also the Alleys and Walks may be made to cast their water in hasty showres Also in or near houses may the water that falls from them be conducted thereunto But the usual way to make Pools of water on Hills and Downs for Cattle is to lay a good Bed of Clay near half a foot thick and after a long and laborious ramming thereof then lay another course of Clay about the same thickness and ram that also very well then pave it very well with Flints or other Stones which not only preserves the Clay from the tread of Cattle c. but from chapping of the Winde or Sun at such times as the Pool is empty Note also that if there be the least hole or chap in the bottom it will never hold water unless you renew the whole labour Some have prescribed ways for the making of Artificial Springs others for the making of Salt-water fresh but those things being not yet fully experienced we leave being not willing to trouble our Husbandman with so great Philosophical intricacies tending rather to lead him from the more plain and advantagious Method to imaginary and fruitless attempts Heat and Drought do not always attend us nor do they so Great Cold and Frost frequently afflict us especially in the greatest part or proportion of this Country but that we have also a share of a superabundant Cold and Moisture but seeing that they do not so frequently happen together as Heat and Drought usually do we will divide them The cold that most afflicts the Husbandman is the bitter Frosts that sometimes happen in the Winter or Spring and are beyond our power either to foresee or prevent yet that they may not injure us so far as otherwise they might we propose these remedies or preventions Some Lands are more inclinable and capacitated by their nature or scituation to suffer by bitter Frosts than others are as those that lie on a cold Clay or Chalk more than those that lie on a warm Sand or Gravel those that lie moist than those that lie dry those that lie on the North or East-sides of Hills than those that lie on the South or West therefore it is good to plant or sow such Trees Grains or Plants that can least abide the cold in such grounds that are most warmly seated And although that it is not an easie thing to alter the nature of the ground yet is it feasible to take away the offensive moisture that doth so much cool the Land whereof more hereafter in this Chapter and also to place such Artificial defensives against the cold that may very much remedy this inconvenience as we see it is most evident that the Frosts have a greater influence where the Air hath its free passage than where it is obstructed To which end we cannot but propose Inclosures and planting of Trees as a remedy also for this Disease for any manner of shelter preserves the Corn young Trees c. from the injury that otherwise would happen to them as we see in Snows and drowning of Meadows that the Snow and water prove defensive against the cold In Gardens and other nearer Plantations the Spring-frosts prove most pernicious the general remedies whereof where the site and position of the place is not naturally warm are Walls Pales or other Edifices or tall hedges or rows of Trees whereof the Whitethorn but chiefly Holly have the preheminence but these seem remote and rather preventions against the winde the more nearer are the application of new Horse-dung or Litter that hath lain under Horses which applied to the roots of any tender Trees or Plants preserves them from the
plain open or high Countries by woful experience do finde To prevent which as to Buildings by common experience and observation we finde that Trees are the only and most proper safeguard for which the Eugh is the best although it be long a growing Next unto that the Elm which soon aspires to a good height and full proportionable body and is thickest in the branches and will thrive in most Lands but any Trees are better than none As to Fruits Walls Pales or any other Buildings are a good prevention and security for Garden-fruits but for want of that Hedges and Rows of Trees may be raised at an easie rate and in little time As to Timber or other Trees which are also subject to be subverted or broken by high windes to abate the largeness of their Heads proves a good prevention especially the Elm which ought to have its Boughs often abated else will it be much more subject to be injured by high windes than any other Tree Hops of any Plant the Husbandman propagateth receiveth the most damage from high windes which may in some measure be prevented Against the Spring-windes which nips the young Buds and afterwards bloweth them from the Poles a good Pale or Thorn-hedge much advantageth but against the boysterous windes when they are at the tops of the Poles a tall Row of Trees incompassing the whole Hop-Garden is the best security in our power to give them Also be sure to let their Poles be firm and deep in the ground As to Corn windes sometimes prove an injury to it in the Ear when they are accompanied with great Rains by lodging of it but the greatest injury to it is in the Grass when it is young I mean Winter-corn the fierce bitter blasts in the Spring destroying whole Fields The only and sure remedy or prevention against this Disease is Inclosure as before we noted of Cold. In Spain c. where the Mist of Superstition hath dimmed Thunder and Tempest Hail c. the Spiritual and Natural sight the Ringing of Sacred Bells the use of Holy Water c. are made use of to Charm the Evil Spirit of the Air which very frequently in those hotter Climates terrifies the Inhabitants that he may be a little more favourable unto them than others But it cannot enter into my thoughts or belief that any thing we can do here either by Noises Charms c. or by the use of Bays Lawrel c. can prevail with so great a Natural Power and so much beyond our Command Prayers unto God excepted which are the only Securities and Defensives against so Potent and Forcible Enemies Blighting and Mildews have been generally taken to be the Mildews same thing which hath begotten much errour and the ways and means used for the prevention and cure have miscarried through the ignorance of the Disease For Mildew is quite another thing and different from blasting Mildews being caused from the Condensation of a fat and moist Exhalation in a hot and dry Summer from the Blossoms and Vegetables of the Earth and also from the Earth its self which by the coolness and serenity of the Air in the night or in the upper serene Region of the Air is condensed into a fat glutinous matter and falls to the Earth again part whereof rests on the leaves of the Oak and some other Trees whose leaves are smooth and do not easily admit the moisture into them as the Elm or other rougher leaves do which Mildew becomes the principal Food for the industrious Bees being of its self sweet and easily convertible into Honey Other part thereof rests on the Ears and Stalks of Wheat bespotting the Stalks with a different from the natural colour and being of a glutinous substance by the heat of the Sun doth so binde up the young tender and close Ears of the Wheat that it prevents the growth and compleating of the imperfect Grain therein which occasioneth it to be very light in the Harvest and yield a poor and lean Grain in the Heap But if after this Mildew falls a showre succeeds or the winde blow stifly it washeth or shaketh it off and are the only natural Remedies against this sometimes heavy Curse Some advise in the Morning after the Mildew is fallen and before the rising of the Sun that two men go at some convenient distance in the Furrows holding a Cord stretched streight betwixt them carrying it so that it may shake off the Dew from the tops of the Corn before the heat of the Sun hath thickned it It is also advised to sow Wheat in open grounds where the winde may the better shake off this Dew this being looked upon to be the only inconvenience Inclosures are subject unto but it is evident that the Field-lands are not exempt from Mildews nor yet from Smut where it is more than in Inclosed Lands The sowing of Wheat early hath been esteemed and doubtless is the best Remedy against Mildews by which means the Wheat will be well filled in the Ear before they fall and your increase will be much more As for curiosity sake Wheat was sown in all Moneths of the Year that sown in July produced such an increase that is almost incredible In France they usually sow before Michaelmas Bearded-Wheat is not so subject to Mildews as the other the Fibres keeping the Dew from the Ear. Hops suffer very much by Mildews which if they fall on them when small totally destroy them The Remedies that may be used against it is when you perceive the Mildews on them to shake the Poles in the Morning Or you may have an Engine to cast water like unto Rain on them which will wash the Mildew from them And if you have water plenty in your Hop-garden it will quit the cost in such years Hops being usually sold at a very high rate SECT II. From the Water and Earth Next unto those Aërial or Coelestial injuries which descend upon us we shall discourse of such that proceed from the Water and Earth that do also in a very great measure at some times and in some places afflict us proving great impediments to those Improvements that might otherwise be easily accomplished and also great detriments unto the Countryman upon that which he hath already performed As the want of water in some places proves a great impediment Much water offending and injury to the improvement and management of Rustick Affairs so doth the superabundant quantity either from the flowings of the Sea over the low Marsh-Lands at Spring-tides and High-waters or from great Land-flouds but principally from the low and level scituation of the Land where it is subject to Springs Over-flowings c. It is evident that much good Land hath for many Ages yielded Over-flowing of the Sea little benefit by reason of the high waters that sometimes have covered it over and destroyed that which in the intervals hath grown and hath also over-flown much good Land so frequently
Water from the Earth into it Much Land there is in England that is capable of a very great Stones Shrubs c. improvement by removing those common and stubborn Obstacles as Stones Shrubs Goss Broom c. which are naturally produced in many places and the faint-hearted lazy and sometimes beggerly Husbandman had rather let them grow and suck out the Marrow and Fat of his Land than bestow any cost or pains to remove them and is contented with now and then a bundle of Bushes c. when the removal of them would not only be an improvement of his Land by their absence but the materials themselves by a right and judicious way of ordering them might become also an additional improvement As first of Stones which being picked up and laid on heaps about the roots of either Fruit or Timber-trees planted on the Bounds and in Rows on the Land is a very great help and advantage to the growth of such Trees and saves the labour of carrying them off the ground which charge usually exceeds the charge of picking them up This only where Stones offend or are injurious Shrubs Goss Broom c. prove a very great annoyance to Husbandry and the difficulty and charge in plucking them up is the principal impediment to their removal to such that are ignorant of the most dextrous ways used to that purpose the best whereof I finde to be this described by Mr. Plat Viz. A very strong Instrument of Iron like unto a Dung-fork with three Grains or Tines only much bigger according to the bigness of the Shrubs you use it about the upper part thereof is a very strong and long Stail or handle like a Leaver Now set this Instrument at a convenient distance from the Root slopewise and with a Hedging-beetle drive it in a good depth then lift up the Stail and place under it across an Iron-bar or such-like Fulciment to keep it streight and that it sink not into the ground Then take hold of the Cord that before ought to have been fastened to the top of the Stail and by this means may you Eradicate any Shrubs c. If it will not do at once place it on the other side c. These Bushes Brakes and suchlike though they are of little worth or use for any other thing yet are they very necessary and beneficial to improve the Land by burning them being dry either by themselves or under heaps of Turf Earth c. as before Chap. 5. was observed Some Lands are more prone and subject to Weeds and that in Weeds some years than other which is often occasioned by water standing on it destroying the Corn and such Seeds that are usually sown in it and nourishing such Weeds that most delight in moisture the only remedy whereof is to lay it dry and add some convenient drying and lightning materials or composts thereon as Sand Ashes c. Also some sorts of Dungs or Manures cause Weeds as Dung made of Straw Hawm Fern or suchlike laid on Lands in any great quantity without any other mixture of Horse-dung Sheeps-dung Lime Ashes or suchlike hot Compost which do in some measure correct the cold and sluggish quality of it but in some years and on some Lands any ordinary cold Dung begets Weeds which injure the Corn more than the fatness of the Dung advantages therefore Lime Marle Chalk Ashes c. are to be preferred in most Lands Weeds in Pasture-lands are best destroyed by burning of it in Turfs as before we discovered or by Plowing of it without Chap. 5. burning Rushes Flages and suchlike Aquaticks are best destroyed by Rushes Flags c. draining so that you cut your Drains below the roots thereof that it may take away the matter that feeds them The Sowthistle proves a great annoyance to some Lands by Sowthistle killing the Grass Corn c. although it be a sure Token of the strength of the Land The way to destroy them is to cut them up by the roots before feeding-time the advantage you will receive will answer your expence and more The way to destroy this so common and known an annoyance Fern. is to Mow it off in the Spring whether with an Iron or Wooden Sythe it matters not for it will easily break which work reiterate the same year as fast as it grows and it is confidently affirmed that it will kill and destroy the Fern for ever after Improvement and bettering the Land by Soyling Marling or Liming c. is also a principal remedy against all manner of Broom Furze Heath and other suchlike trumpery that delight only in barren Lands Very much differing from Mildews is the blighting of Corn Blights and Smut the Mildews proceeding from a different cause and happening only in dry Summers when on the contrary Blighting happens in wet and is also occasioned through the too much fatness and rankness in Land as is observed that strong Lands are usually sown with Barley Pease or suchlike to abate the fertility thereof before it be sown with Wheat which would otherwise be subject to Blights or Blasting Also Wheat sown on level or low Land in moist years is subject to the same inconveniencies for you may observe that the Wheat that grows on the tops of the ridges in moist years to be better and freer than what grows in the Furrows which is usually blighted by means of water and fatness lying more about it than the other for Wheat naturally affects to be kept dry on moist and strong ground Therefore as moisture and the richness of the ground together occasions this disease by knowing thereof you may easily remedy it by laying your Land on high Ridges which if it be never so rich the Wheat growing thereon will hardly be blighted if not overcome with moisture Smut seems to proceed from the same cause therefore need we Smut to say the less Only that sometimes smuttiness proceeds from other causes as by sowing of Smutty-corn by soiling the Land with rotten Vegetables as Straw Hawm Fern c. It is confidently affirmed that the smutty Grains of Wheat being sown will grow and produce Ears of Smut but I confess I have not yet tryed and shall therefore suspend the belief thereof till I have The sowing 〈◊〉 Wheat that is mixed with Smut doth generally produce a Smutty Crop whether the Smut it self grow or not unless it be first prepared by liming of it which is thus done first slake your Lime and then moisten your Corn and stir them well together c. and sow it Or by steeping of it in Brine either of which are good preventions against the Smut You may also prepare the ground by Liming or other ways of inriching it with sharp or saline Dungs or Soils and it will produce Corn free from Smut for it is most evident that Land often sown with the same Grain or much out of heart produces a smutty Crop as may be
Fin like a knife turned up by the side of the Spade and sometimes on both sides to divide the Clay or moist Earth and cut the small Roots that it come clean away The ordinary Spade is made several ways but the most commendable Common spades are the lightest and thinnest wrought not wanting their due strength the cleaner they are kept the better they work The How is an Instrument of very great use and it is great pity The How it 's no more used If the spare-times of the year except when the Earth is frozen were but made use of to How the several creeks corners and patches of your Land it would undoubtedly prove a very great Improvement More hereof in their proper Chap. 4. places Besides the Spade and How and their kinds there are several Other Instruments used in Digging c. other Instruments used by the Husbandman for the grubbing and raising of Trees both great and small and Bushes Brakes c. and for the making holes and passages in hard and stony Lands for several occasions and for the loading and spreading of Dung Earth c. As Mattocks Pick-axes or Grubbing-axes and also the great Instrument described by Mr. Platt for the quick riddance of Shrubs Broom and suchlike mentioned before Chap. 10. The Iron-crow or Iron-bar are not to be wanting Also Shovels the Dung-fork Mole-spades or Paddle-staffs you will sometimes have occasion for SECT IV. Other various Instruments He that goes a borrowing goes a sorrowing is an old and true Proverb Therefore it behoves our Husbandman that intends to thrive to possess or furnish himself with all things necessary and of present necessity for his Occupation that he may not put himself to the trouble of borrowing nor the damage he is likely to sustain for want of nor the scorn or disgrace of being denied any thing he wants That you may not be forgetful of any or at least of the most useful and necessary Instruments besides the fore-mentioned I will enumerate such as come into my minde and advise you to add what you finde deficient and let them be all placed in their proper places according to Xenophon's advice Supellex Instrumenta varia Rustica suo quaeque loco ordine disposita in promptu sint quoties vel promenda vel requisita seponenda sunt Belonging to the Arable and Field-land are Harrows Drags Forks Sickles Reap-hooks Weed-hooks Pitchforks Rakes Plough-staff and Beetle Sleds Roller Mold-spears and Traps Cradle-sythes Seed-lip To the Barn and Stable Flails Ladders Winnowing-fan Measures for Corn. Sieves and Rudders Brooms Sacks Skeps or Scuttles Bins Pails Curry-combs Main-combs Whips Goads Harneys for Horses and Yokes for Oxen. Pannels Wanteys Pack-saddles Sussingles Cart-lines Skrein for Corn. To Meadows and Pastures Sythes Rakes Pitchforks and Prongs Fetters and Clogs and Shackles Cutting-Spade for Hay-reeks Horse-locks Other necessary Instruments Hand-barrows Wheel-barrows Dibbles Hammer and Nails Pincers Sissers Bridle and Saddle Nail-piercers or Gimlets Hedging-hooks and Bills Garden-sheers A Grindstone Whetstones Hatchets and Axes Sawes Beetle and Wedges Leavers Shears for Sheep Trowels for House and Garden Hod and Tray. Hog-yokes and Rings Marks for Beasts and Utensils Scales and Weights An Aul and every other thing necessary SECT V. Of Amendments and Profitable Experiments in Building As the Manners and Customs of Men are in every Age refined and tend more and more to Purity and Perfection in these Northern and formerly-rude and salvage Countries or rather grow more exact and imitate the other more Southerly and first civilized parts in Language Manners Arts and Sciences so do they also endeavour to reform their most gross undigested and ill-contrived Structures and Edifices not only in Cities and Towns but in their Country-Villages also that we now compare some of our Cities and Towns with most of theirs and even excel them in several and that not a few of our most suavious and delectable Rural Seats as well for their Magnificent Regular and Artificial Structures and most Ingenious contrivances as in their most salubrious convenient and pleasant Scituations And for the future were but the Rules of Architecture duly observed and those new and compleat Methods and Models contrived for Building and the Scituations of places according to the best judgments taken notice of in such Buildings that may hereafter be raised either de Novo or in the restoring or reedifying of our ancient and decayed Seats in our Country-Villages our England in a few Ages would appear a Kingdom beset and adorned in every part with curious and admirable Habitations possessed with Noble and Ingenious Inhabitants and would at large represent to the view of all what Middlesex it's Epitome now doth and would contract the envy of other Nations as the Land of Canaan formerly did Therefore let me advise all such that are willing or necessitated to Build that they sit down and consider of the manner and Method of Building as well as of the charge and expence and that they will make choise of such Surveyors and Workmen that understand what they go about and not be guided or perswaded by such that are wedded to an old deformed Custom who will in no wise consent to a more compleat way although it be much more Beautiful and Regular and also with less materials and cheaper and more convenient than the other for no other reason but that it is a Novel and not as our Forefathers did before us yet perhaps are willing to bestow expence enough upon it in inriching it although but with little skill or Art But I suppose it is better to erect that which will be pleasing to and content both Wise-men and Fools then that though done by the same cost and expence which will only please Fools This is a digression from our intended design and here inserted only to perswade such that intend any store of Building to make use of such Authors and persons that understand that Art which in this place we do not undertake to teach only shall give the Husbandman a few general Rules and Directions that I have casually met withal about the scituation and building of a plain Country-seat and the building of Walls Barns Mills c. Praedium Rusticum bonum Coelum habeat c. Let your Country-house have a good Air and not open to Tempests The scituation of a House seated in a good Soil let it therein excel if you can let it stand under a hill and behold the South in a healthy place let there be no want of Workmen or Labourers let there be good water and let it stand near some City or Market-Town or the Sea or some Navigable River or have a good Road or way from it Thus Cato advises Little more can be said but that Woods also as well as water may be near it they being the principal things that adorn a Country Habitation But if you cannot conveniently seat your House amongst the Trees yet are there few
at any time to give a probable conjecture of whatsoever is to be known or signified by that Instrument which otherwise you shall hardly do This new-invented Instrument which is termed the Baroscope Of the Baroscope by which the Authors thereof pretend to discover the temper and inclination of the Air from its weight in brief is thus described Seal a Glass-tube Hermettically at the one end fill it almost with Quick silver and invert it resting the open end in a Vessel of Quicksilver then the Quicksilver in the Tube by its weight presseth downwards into the Vessel and so distendeth or streineth the Air which is but little remaining in the Glass that the summity of the Tube is for a small space void of Quicksilver so far as that small portion or remainder of Air is capable of distention which is much more by Quicksilver the most ponderous of Fluid Bodies than by water in the Weather-glass But they pretend that this Column of Quicksilver in the Tube is supported by the weight of the Air Ambient pressing on the stagnant Quicksilver in the Vessel and that as the Air becomes more or less ponderous so doth the Quicksilver in the Tube rise or fall more or less accordingly which if it were true then in case the stagnant Quicksilver were broader in a broader Vessel would the greater quantity of Air press harder upon it and the Quicksilver in the Tube rise higher but it doth not Also if the Quicksilver in the Tube were supported by the pressure or weight of the Air on the stagnant Quicksilver in the Vessel then would not the Quicksilver descend by the making of some small hole on the top of the Tube which we evidently perceive to do Also when the Air is most rare and by consequence less ponderous if any weight thereof should be supposed then will the Column of Quicksilver in the Tube be higher and when the Air is more dense or burdened with moisture then will it be lower The contrary whereof would happen if their Hypothesis were true But most evident it is that as the Ambient Air becomes more or less rare or dense so doth the Air in the Tube contract or dilate it self which is the sole cause of the rise or fall of the Quicksilver Much more might be said herein and also of the Weather-glass or Thermoscope but I hope this may suffice to induct inquisitive and not exact or perfect Artists The full discourse and discovery of the various effects observations and conclusions of these Instruments requiring rather a Tract peculiar and proper for them only There is also another Instrument that may be made more exact for any of the aforesaid observations or intentions and fit for further discoveries but my occasions will not at present give me leave to perfect it SECT II. Of Observations and Prognosticks taken from the Earth and Water If the Earth appear more dry than ordinary or if it greedily Of the Earth drink in Rains lately fallen or Floods suddenly abate it signifies more Rain to follow If the Earth or any moist or Fenny places yield any extraordinary scents or smells it presageth Rain If the Water being formerly very clear change to be dim or Of the Water thick it signifies Rain If Dews lie long in a morning on the Grass c. it signifies fair weather the Air then being more serene and not of an attractive or spungy nature If Dews rise or vanish suddenly and early in the morning it presages Rain If Marble-stones Metals c. appear moist it indicates the inclination of the Air to be moist and subject to Rain But if in a morning a Dew be on the Glass in the window and on the inside it signifies a serene and cool Air and inclinable to drought If the Sea appear very calm with a murmuring noise it signifies Of the Sea winde If on the surface of the Sea you discern white Froth like unto Crowns or Bracelets it signifies winde and the more plainly they appear the greater will the Winde and Tempests be If the waves swell without winds or the Tide rise higher or come ashore more swift than usual it presageth windes SECT III. Of Observations and Prognosticks taken from Beasts It is a thing worthy of admiration and consideration how the Beasts of the Field Fowls of the Air c. should be capable of so great a degree of knowledge and understanding as to foresee the different changes and varieties of seasons and not from common observations as man doth but from a certain instinct of Nature as is most evident Several significations of the change of weather are taken Of Beeves or Kine c. from the different postures of these Beasts as if they lie on their right side or look towards the South or look upwards as though they would snuff up the Air according to the Poet Mollipedesque Boves spectantes lumina Coeli Cicero Naribus humiferum duxere ex Aere Succum Or if they eat more than ordinary or lick their Hoofs all about Convenit instantes praenoscere protinus Imbres Avien Rain follows forthwith If they run to and fro more than ordinary flinging and kicking and extending their Tails Tempests usually follow If the Bull leadeth the Herd and will not suffer any of them to go before him it presageth Winde and Rain If Sheep feed more than ordinary it signifies Rain or if the Of Sheep Rams skip up and down and eat greedily If Kids leap or stand upright or gather together in Flocks or Of Kids Herds and feed near together it presageth Rain If the Ass bray more than ordinary or without any other Of Asses apparent cause it presageth Rain or windes If Dogs howl or dig holes in the earth or scrape at the walls Of Dogs of the house c. more than usual they thereby presage death to some person in that house if sick or at least tempestuous weather to succeed If the hair of dogs smell stronger than usual or their guts tumble and make a noise it presageth Rain or Snow or they tumble up and down The Cat by washing her face and putting her foot over her Of Cats Ear foreshews Rain It hath been anciently observed that before the fall of a house Of Mice and Rats the Mice and Rats have forsaken it The squeeking and skipping up and down of Mice and Rats portend Rain Parvi cum stridunt denique Mures Avien Cum gestire solo cum ludere forte videntur Portendunt crasso consurgere Nubila Coelo Of all Creatures the Swine is most troubled against winde or Of Swine Tempests which makes Countrymen think that only they see the winde They usually shake Straw in their mouths against Rain As Virgil Ore solutus Immundi meminere sues jactare Maniplos If they play much it signifies the same SECT IV. Of Observations and Prognosticks taken from Fowl As Beasts so have Birds a
Trees A Shard Vide Gap A Shed a place erected and covered over for shelter for Cattle or any other use against a wall or other Edifice To Sheer is used in the Northern parts for to Reap Shock Several sheaves of Corn set together A Shrape or Scrape a place baited with Chaff or Corn to intice Birds To Shroud To cut off the head-branches of a Tree A Sickle a toothed Reap-hook A Site or Scite a principal Mannour or Farm-house A Skepe or Scuttle a flat and broad Basket made to carry Corn withal A Skreyn is an Instrument made of Wire on a Frame for the dividing of Corn from Dust Cockle Ray c. Also it is usually made of Lath for the skreining of Earth Sand Gravel c. Slab The out-side sappy Plank or Board sawn off from the sides of Timber A Sled a thing without Wheels whereon to lay a Plough or other ponderous thing to be drawn A Sluce a Vent or Drain for water Sneed or Snead The handle of a Sythe or suchlike Tool Souse The Offal of Swine Soutage Course Cloth or bagging for Hops or suchlike A Spade or Spitter wherewith they dig or delve Also a Cutting-Spade wherewith they cut Hay or Corn-Mowes Stack of Corn. See Reek Staddles Standils or Standards Trees reserved at the felling of Woods for growth for Timber Stail The handle of a Tool Stale a living Fowl put in any place to allure other Fowl where they may be taken Stercoration Dunging Sterile Barren Stover Straw A Strike of Flax so much as is heckled at one handful Also it signifies an Instrument wherewith they strike Corn in the measuring Also it is used in the Northern parts for a Measure containing about a Bushel Structures Buildings A Sturk a young Beeve or Heifer A Sty a place for fatting or keeping Swine Succulation a Pruning of Trees Succulent Juicy A Sull a term used for a Plough in the Western parts A Sull-paddle a small Spade-staff or Instrument to cleanse the Plough from the clogging Earth To Summer-stir To fallow Land in the Summer A Sussingle a large Girt that Carriers use to binde or fasten their Packs withal Sward Ground is said to have a Sward or to be swarded when it is well grown or Coated over with Grass or other Vegetables Swath or Swarth Grass Corn or suchlike as it is laid by the Mower from the Sythe Swill Used in the Northern parts for shade or shadow To Swingle Flax a term used by Flax-dressers A Swine-herd a Keeper of Swine A Sythe wherewith they Mow Grass or Corn. T TAre of Flax the finest drest part thereof ready for the Spinner Tares A sort of Grain To Ted To turn or spread new-mown Grass A Teem or Team A certain number of Horses or other Beasts for the Draught Terrasse a Walk on a Bank or Bulwark Tet The Cows Dug by some is called the Tet. A Thrave of Corn contains four Shocks each Shock consisting of six Sheaves A Tike a small Bullock or Heifer Tills Lentils a sort of Pulse Tylth Soyl or other improvement of Land The Tine or Grain of a Fork Tits Small Cattle A Trendle a flat Vessel by some called a Kiver A Trough a Vessel to hold water c. to feed Cattle in c. or for the beating of Apples for Cider or the like A Trundle a thing made and set on low Wheels to draw heavy burdens on A Trunchion a piece of Wood cut short like a Quarter-staff A Tumbrel a Dung-cart V AVat a Vessel to contain Beer Ale Cider or any other Liquor in its preparation Vallor or Vallow or Vate a Concave-Mold wherein a Cheese is pressed Vindemiation The gathering of Grapes or reaping the Fruit of any thing as of Cherries Apples Bees c. To Vindemiate To gather the same Fruits Vinous Winy Vnderwood Coppice or any other Wood that is not esteemed Timber Vrry The blew Clay that is digged out of the Coal-mines and lies next the Coal being crude and immature and used for soyling of Land Vtensils Instruments used in any Art especially Husbandry W AWantey Vide Sussingle Wattell The naked fleshie matter that hangs about a Turkeys head A Weanel a young Beast newly weaned Whinnes Furzes A Wind-row Hay or Grass raked in Rows in order to be set up in Cocks Winlace or Winch that by which any burden is wound up or drawn out of a Well or other deep place To Winnow to separate by Winde the Corn from the Chaff To Winter-rig to fallow Land in the Winter Wood-land Places where much Woods are or it 's generally taken for Countries inclosed Y A Yate or Yatt A Gate A Yoak is either an Instrument for Oxen to draw by or to put on Swine or other unruly Creatures to keep them from running through Hedges Z ZEphyrus The West-winde An ALPHABETICAL TABLE OF The Principal Matters before treated of A OF the Abele Tree Page 83 Agriculture what it is 1 The Air it 's divers signification 298 Of the Alaternus 86 Of the Alder-Tree 83 Almonds 103 Anise the ordering thereof 154 Ants and Ant-hills to destroy 216 Angling 253 The Apiary its form and manner 170 Apples 99 The Apple-tree id April's Observations 269 Aprecocks 107 Aquatic-Trees 83. 92. 93 Arable Land it 's improvement 31 Arbor Vitae 87 Artichoaks 151 Artichoaks of Jerusalem 155 The Ass 160 Ashes their use 66 The Ash it 's propagation and use 79 Asparagus 151 The Aspen 83 Augusts Observations 279 B BAuk-hooks to lay 257 Barbel to take 258 Barley 36 Its Use 51 Barberries 103 Bark of Trees a good Soyl 71 The Bay-tree 86 Bat-fowling 246 Beasts 160 Beam See Horn Beam and Quick-Beam Their signification in change of Weather Several Beasts injurious to Husbandry 208 Beans of divers sorts 38. 149 The Beech it 's propagation and use 78 Beans called French or Kidney-Beans 150 Bees the several ways of ordering them from page 168. to page 188 Beets 154 Small Birds to destroy 213 The Birch 81 Of making and using Bird-lime 238. 246 The Black-thorn 89 Blight to prevent 207 Bobbing 258 Box 87 Bream to take 257 Brick and Tiles to make 232 Buck-wheat 37 Building profitable Experiments therein 229 Burning of Land or Burn-baiting 58 59 60 Of Rushie and Mossie Ground 23 Of Stones Chalk c. 61 C CAbbages and Coleworts 153 Carp to take 256 Carriages in Watering Meadows 21 Carts and Waggons the several sorts 226 Carrots 154 Cedar 86 Cherries 101 Chesnut it 's propagation and use 80 Chevin and Chub to take 258 Chalk the use thereof 61 Cider the making thereof 126 127 Cignet to fat 167 Cisterns or Pits for Water to make 196 Clay and Cold Land its use 32 Clay its use 63 Clouds their signification 295 Clover-grass its improvement and use 25 Cold and Frost remedies against it 197 Coleflower 153 Coleseed its use 42. 52 Codlings to plant 118. 121 Coneys to destroy 162. 209 Cormorant-Fishing 259 Corn its preservation 52 Cows and Oxen 161 Cow Dung 66 Copses