VIVE LA REPUBLICK THE ENGLISH IMPROVER IMPROVED or the SVRVEY OF HVSBANDRY SVRVEYED Discovering the Improueableness of all Lands Some to be vnder a double and Treble others vnder a Five or Six Fould And many vnder a Tenn fould yea Some vnder a Twenty-fould Improuement By Wa Blithâ—â— a lover of Ingenuity All clearely demonstrated from Principles of Reason Ingenuity and late but most Real Experiences and held forth at an Inconsiderable charge to the Profits accrewing thereby under Six Peeces of Improvement 1 By Floting and Watering such Land as lieth capeable thereof 2 By drayning Fen Reducing Bog and Regaining Sea-lands 3 By such Enclosures as prevents Depopulation advanceth all Interests 4 By Tillage of some Land lost for want of and Pasturing others destroyed with Plowing 5 By a Discovery of all Soyles and Composts with their nature and use 6 By doubling the growth of Wood by a new Plantation The Third Impression much Augmented With an Additionall Discovery of the severall Tooles and Instruments in their Formes and Figures promised With a Second Part Containing Six Newer Peeces of Improvement 1 Our English Husbandring Claver grasse and St. Foyn as high as may be 2 The facilitating the charge and burthen of the Plough with divers Figures thereof 3 The Planting Welde Woad and Madder three rich commodities for Dyers 4 The Planting of Hops Saffron and Liquorish with their Advance 5 The Planting of Rape Cole-seed Hemp Flax and the profit thereof 6 The great Advance of Land by divers Orchards and Garden Fruits The Experimenting whereof makes good the Improvement promised Prov. 21. 5. The thoughts of the diligent bring abundance A diligent man shall stand before Kings Eccl. 9. 10. All therefore that thy hand shall find to do do it with all thy power for there is neither wisedome nor knowledge in the grave whither thou goest London Printed for Iohn Wright at the Kings-head in the Old-Bayley 1653. To the Right Honorable the Lord Generall Cromwell and the Right Honorable the Lord President and the rest of that most Honorable Society of the Councill of STATE Right Honourable AS a Man or Christian out of pure love to Mankind I chuse rather to cast my self at Your Lordships Feet and come under Your greatest Censure for this high Presumption than to omit so necessary a Duty and Discovery as the substance of this discourse Imports Therefore dare not conceale the least inconvenience that may befall the Publique but take bolness to present my thoughts that Your non-apprehending the Prejudices hindring Improvement nor clearely your own Capassities to remove them and may be want of oportunity to consult about these lesser things though very great in themselves the practise whereof throughly promoted might make the greater more easie compared with our weighty and present affairs may in some measure be an accidentall cause that Improvements of our Lands go on no better although materially the cause is in our own sloth Prejudice and ill Husbandry And though I dare not present this rude Treatise unto Your Honors to crave so high Patronage yet I shall adventure these many most humble Representations of some Prejudices to Improvements that remain founded by a Law And of some other Obstacles as firmly rooted by Corruption that without your Honors Power and Wisdoms help therein the Improvements here tendred will be in great measure hindred To the removall whereof if Your Honors shall see cause to give incouragement either by an Addition of such Lawes as shall appear unto you wanting or Repealing such as hinder I shall not question but mens spirits will be raised to such Experimenting of the principles of Ingenuity as that wee may see this Common-wealth soon raised to her utmost fruitfullness and greatest glory The particulars here are too many here to discourse at large I shall therefore take boldness to present some few with some brief reasons to evince the same and they are very great discouragements to the Ingenuous and Active Prosecution of the Improvements of the Nation The first Prejudice is That if a Tenant be at never so great paines or cost for the improvement of his Land he doth thereby but occasion a greater Rack upon himself or else invests his Land-Lord into his cost and labour gratis or at best lies at his Land-Lords mercy for requitall which occasions a neglect of all good Husbandry to his own the Land the Land-Lord and the Common-wealths suffering Now this I humbly conceive may be removed if there were a Law Inacted by which every Land-Lord should be obliged either to give him reasonable allowance for his clear Improvement or else suffer him or his to enjoy it so much longer as till he hath had a proportionable requitall As in Flanders and else where in hiring Leases upon Improvement if the Farmer Improve it to such a Rate above the present value the Land-Lord gives either so many years purchase for it or allowes him a part of it or confirms more time of which the Tenant being secured he would Act Ingenuity with violence as upon his own and draw forth the Earth to yeeld her utmost fruitfullness which once being wrought unto perfection will easily be maintained and kept up at the height of fruitfullness which will be the Common-wealths great advantage Some Tenants have Advanced Land from Twenty pounds to Forty pounds per an and depending upon the Land-Lords favour have been wip'd of all and many Farmers by this uncertainty have been impoverished and left under great disgrace which might as well have been advanced The second Prejudice is against that great Improvement by floating Lands which exposeth the Improver to sute of Law for Turning a Watercourse by Millers or others which are minded to molest the Improvement although the Improvement be ten fold greaer than the Prejudice can be and the Advantage be far more publique than the others pretended loss can be yet few dare adventure upon the work for fear of being sued or molested Many great Improvements have been and are to this day hindred and ly dead because the Miller cannot be compounded with at any rate some I know whose Improvements might be Ten-fold and more the Millers Prejudice little if any at all because your exact husbands so clear all their boggy low parts and some time by their large draines break through many springs and issuing waters that they carry a better stream unto the Miller than he had before and his Improvement shall be able to supply a great part of the Country with Hay and Grass where was before but little and may be the Millars mill may be worth five or six pound per an few worth ten that usually stand upon these waters and let him be damnified what ever he can it is in no proportion to the Common wealths loss to such an Improvement The third Prejudice is where all mens Land lie intermixed in Common Fields or Meddowes The Ingenuous are disabled to the Improving theirs because others
may be about 4 or five inches long which is also to be planted and is as good as the crown set also if it be any thing a moist time you may take slips from the leaf or branches and set them and they some of them will grow but they may be set betwixt the other to thicken lest they should fail There is abundance of Spanish sets come over of late One M. Walker sells of them at Winchester house in Southwark London but how good they be I am able to say little but hear various reports of them and therefore I will forbear they are bought cheaper than English sets can be but if they bring forth a small Spanish Liquorish I shall not much affect them The third particular is the profit advantage may be made thereby which is very considerable but it is also subject to the ebbings and flowings of the market It must be taken up in winter and must be sold as soon as taken up lest it lose the weight which it must needs do you may make of one Acre of indifferent Liquorish 50. or 60 l. and of excellent good 80. 90. or 100l it is not of so great use as some other commodities are and so will not vent off in so great parcells as others will neither will it indure the keeping for a good market because it will dry exceedingly The Fifth Piece containes the Art of Planting of Rape Cole-seed Hemp and Flax with the severall advantages that may bee made of each CHAP. XL. Only contains the Discovery of Rape and Cole-seeds husbandry THe planting of Cole-seed or Rape-seed is another excellent good meanes for the improving land the Coleseed is of late dayes best estemed And it is most especially usefull upon you Marsh-land Fen land or upon your new recor vered Sea-land or any lands very rank and fat whether arable or pasture The best seed is the biggest fairest seed that you can get it being dry and of a pure clear color of the color of the color of the best Onion-seed It is to be had in many parts of this Nation but Holland is the Center of it from thence comes your good seed usually The season of sowing is at or about Midsummer you must have your land plowed very well and laid even and fine whether upon the lay turf or areable and both may do well but your arable must be very rich and fat and having made yovr land fine then you may sow it and about a gallon of seed will sow an Acre the which seed must bee mingled as afore was directed about the Claver with something that you may sow it even and not upon heaps the even sowing of it is very difficult it grows up exceedingly to great leaves but the benefit is made out of the seed especially The time to cut it is when one half of the seed begins to look browne you must reap it as you doe wheat and lay it upon little yelmes or two or three handfuls together till it be dry and that very dry too about a fortnight will dry it it must not be turned nor touched if it were possible for fear of shedding the seed that being the chief profit of it about a fortnight the seed will be dry it must bee gathered in sheets or rather a great ship sail-cloath as big as four or six sheets and carried into the Barn erected on purpose or to that place designed on purpose to thresh it that day you must have sixteen or eighteen men at a floor four men will thresh abundance in a day I have heard that four men have threshed thirty Coume in a day The seed is usually worth sixteen shillings a Coume that is four shillings a busnell sometimes more and sometimes less It will if exceeding good bear ten Coume upon an acre or five quarter if it be but indifferent and will not bear above seaven or eight Coume of an Acre It will raise a good advance upon your lands It is a commodity you will not want sale of the greater the parcell is the better price you will have It is used to make the Rape-oyl as we call it The Turnep seed will grow among it and it will make good oyl also you may sell a thousand pound together to one Chapman it is best to bee planted by the water or near it It cannot be too rank it Eadish or Stubble will exceedingly nourish Sheep in Winter It hath another excellent property it will fit the land so for corning for Wheat it may produce a crop as good or better than it self and for Barley after that The charge of the whole Crop I conceive may come to be betwixt twenty and thirty shillings an Acre and a good Crop may be worth four five six seven or eight pound an Acre the least is a very good improvement because it will doe excellent well if well ordered and a kind season upon land the very first year after recovery when it will do nothing else if it can be but plowed when other things as corn or grain may be hazarded and so have you this Discourse though in much brevity your experience will teach you what euer here is wanting and my weighty business wil not suffer me to supply Shewes how good a publike Commodity Hempe is with the mannar of planting CHAP. XL. AS for Hemp that is a very good Commodity and would be farre the better but that it is not mad so Nationall yet as necessary I am confident as any thing amongst us is yet but not being intended nor incouraged as a staple or grand businesse as it might and Flax also and that more especially then this but both joyned together and a publique stocke erected either in the general or else in every particular Township I know not but why the product thereof might not onely bring in a constant considerable profit for the stock and the poore in every Parish maintained both comfortably in a calling and livelyhood especially all women kind and children but they fitted and brought up to a Trade and way that may render them publikly usefull to the Nation I should undertake to make it out that this very way of it self would do it if it would advance the work Why should we runne to France and to Flanders and the Low-Countries and I know not whither for thred and cloath of so many sorts and fine linnen and cordage or rather why should we not if we be at want of Work-men to make out to that worth and goodnesse fetch here and there a workman from thence and so preserve or rather raise the Trade wholly within our selves had we but Law put in execution to constrain people to labour and some way to perswade men to use their Lands to the best advantage to themselves and publike what should we want We have the Commodity grows exceeding well among us we see we have and can make excellent
seven or eight pound an Acre sold as soone as pulled and gathered but if it be wrought up it may come to eight nine ten or twelve pound or more it is a common thing in use every one knowes the manner of working of it to cloath It maintaines many people in a good imployment and ought to have more publick incouragement given to it not so much becaâ—se of its advance of land as the poor poople of the Land CHAP. XLI Onely speakes to the husbandring Flax so as to make it come up to as much of the improvement as we can FLax it is a very good Commodity and I shall endeavour to incourage all ingenuous men that delight in the common good thereto as much as may be especially all such as have suitable lands therefore upon this account because it is as I may call it a root or roundation of advantage upon the prosperity whereof depends the maintenance of thousands of people in good honest and laborious callings and were but this very peece of husbandry advanced the sowing and raising of it according to the capacity the lands of this Nation will afford I dare affirme to hold it forth against the stoutest opponent that it would maintaine neare all the wanting people of this Nation A volume is too little to containe this vast Discourse yet take an abstract of it which for the more methodicall demonstration shall be held forth under these heads 1. The severall Lands capable of improvement hereby 2. The many people capable of imploymen hereby 3. The best experiences of plantiug and raising to the best advantage 4. The profit accrewing there from both general and particular 1. As for the land capable of raising good flax is any good sound Land be it in what Country sover it will if the land be good either earthy or mixed of sand or gravel and old land it is the best that hath lyen long unplowed it had need come up to the value of a mark or near twenty shillings an Acre that is your kindest slax-land but I know where they give three pound an Acre to sow flax upon within a mile of London and yet in most Counties of England I know as good and kind land for that husbandry as any other and at London they have work-men dearer too and yet can raise though they give so dear a very considerable profit out beside Again any of your good Arrable that is in good Heart and rich that is perfect sound drie land is perfect good flax land Some parts of Essex from Bow and Stratford down along the way by the Marsh side a great part of up-land thereabouts is good flax Land so is there very much in Kent all along on the other side the river by the marshes side is good naturall land thereto in very many parts about Maidstone in Kent where the best thred is made of England is excellent good flax-land so is there also in most Counties as Warwick-shire Worcestershire Northampton c. 2. And that I may give the more incouragement here to spin I say as heretofore it is a commodity that will set abundance of persons upon an honest and profitable calling from the first preparing the land untill the fruit of your labours come in one acre of good flaxe may maintain divers persons to the compleating of it to perfect cloth Consider how many Trades are supplyed hereby 1. The Land must have the same husbandrie of plowing harrowing and sowing as lands have for corne there 's the husbandmans businesse sometimes yea many times weeding too then pulling stitching and drying then rippelling and laying up and preserving the seed then watering it either on the ground or in the water then drying it up and housing it and kilne-drying it then breaking and towtawing it then hetchelling and dressing it up then spinning of it to yarne or thred then weaving of it and bleaching then it returnes againe to the good house-wives use or Seamster and then to the wearing and usage and all these particular imployments be upon this poore businesse halfe a dozen good callings and imployments this makes out and therefore many persons it will imploy and we both want cloth and our poor work 3. Now as to the carrying on this design and making the best of this improvement I shall here give in the best approved way of planting of it as is yet discoved as for the Land let it be good and well plowed both strait and even without balkes and in due season about the beginning of March or the latter end of February And as for the seed the true East Country seed is far the best although it cost very dear one bushel of it to sowe is worth ten bushels of our owne Couetry seede but the second crop of our own of this Country seed is very good and the third indifferent but then no more but again to your best seed The quantity of it is about two bushels upon an Acre at least some sow a pecke more but I conceive two may bee enough but of our seed it will require halfe a strike more then of the East Country seed you may buy it in the Seed-mens shops at Billingsgate our Flax men in former dayes did not sow above half so much or little more but now their experience hath brought them to this pitch At my first knowledge of the East-country flax seede for the perfect discoverie of the goodnesse of it I sowed one land the ridge or middle of the Land with our own Countrie seed and both the furrowes with this Dutch or East-country seed our seed was incompassed with this as with a wall abought it it so much over-grew it in height The season of sowing of it if a warme season in the latter end of March but in the warmer parts as Essex and Kent I conceive mid March may doe well but in colder parts as down towards Warwick-shire and Worcester-shire the beginning of April may be early enough and if it should come a very wet seasoÌ„ you must take care of weeding of it also and in the ripening of it you must be careful that it grow not till it be over-ripe lest the stalk should blacken or mildew yet to his full ripeness you must let it grow the which you may perceive both by the harle and by the seed some will ripen earlier and some later as you sow it earlier or later but against it be ripe be sure to have your pluckers to fall in hand with plucking of it and then tie up every handfull and then set them up upright one against another like a Tent till they be perfectly drie and then get it all into the baâ—ne or where you please to preserve it for use it is indifferent whether you ripple it or take off the boles of it as soone as you bring it home or when you intend to use it As for your watering of it whether in
out of severall Enclosed Countries beyond Champian as also the great Improvement of Heaths Mores and Forrests 83. Cavills against Improvement in Common 85. Advantage of Inclosures 87. The fourth Peece contains the 14 15 16 17 18 19. chap. And sheweth how to Plow and Corn old Pasture-Land and double the Improvement of it and sheweth many particular waies of Improvement of other sorts of Lands Chap. XIV Sheweth how to bank An-hills most speedily 98. The best way to destroy Rush or coldness in any Pasture ibid. Chap. XV. Sheweth the manners of Plowing and working Lands to so great advance with two incredible Presidents of Advance 100. Especiall directions for Plowing â—01 A Noble experiment of Improvement ibid. Chap. XVI Sheweth the best and most advantagious way of Plowing and Husbandring Lands so as most to advantage it in laying down Land to graze to make good the Improvement promised and not to overplow as you tender the loss of your Land 103. The way of sowing Land to be left after to Grass 106. Moderate Ploughing better than unlimited mowing 108. Plowing the onely cure of Weeds 110. Reasons why quick sets thrive no better 114. Chap. XVII Sheweth the dectruction of the Rush Flag Mareblad altering the coldness of Nature and the preventing of the standing Winters Water and the destroying Ant and Moul-hils c. 116. The causes of Moales increasing 118. Chap. XVIII Sheweth how to destroy Ant-hils more pestlent and offensive than the former in some sort of Lands 120. Sow-thistles a great annoyance 121. The easiest way to destroy them 122. Of the destruction of Goss Broom Brakes c. and how to Improve ordinary Lands by planting fruit And shewes how to preserve Corn from blasting and from Crowes and Vermine and gives a Description of the Water Persian Wheel 124. The excellentest way to destroy Broom Gose Ling and Bracking 125. An unfailing way to destroy any filth ibid. How to reap two harvests pag. 127. An unfailing way to preserve Corn from Blasting 128. An unfailing prevention of Crows Rooks or Daws from Corn. 129. The fifth Peece hath the 21 22 23 Chap. And sheweth a discovery of such simples and Ingredients to be compounded with the Earth with the Nature and use of them Chap. XX. Sheweth how in tillage of thy Land thou maist improve it best with an Addition of Soyl or Manure by far than upon the Turf in Grazing and in particular treateth of Liming 132. Meanes or Materials to inrich Land 133. Chap. XXI Sheweth the nature use and benefit of Marl and giveth a President of the Improvement made by it 136. A double experiment 138. The Prime principle in Husbandry 139. Chap. XXII Sheweth the usefulness of Sand and other Soyles out of the Sea and Rivers Sands also are great Inrichments 141. Sea weeds very good soyl for Land 143. Mud in Rivers of great use 144. Chap. XXIII Sheweth the use and nature of Chalk Mud of Pools Pidgeons and Swines Dung and other soyles and Manures therein contained pag. 145. The sixt Peece contains the 24 and 25 Chap. And is a new erection or plantation of divers sorts of Woods and Timber in such a way as shall raise as much in Twenty yeares growth as usually and naturally groweth in forty or fifty years c. Chap. XXIV Speakes of the nature of the Land and sheweth the severall sorts of Woods and how to plot out the same to most delight 154. How to cast out thy Wood-plots for pleasure 155. What sorts are best 157. How to plant thy sets ibid. How to make thy Dike to plant thy sets in ibid. How to plant thy Quieksets and would them up ibid. Chap. XXV Answereth severall objections against this projection and gives a president for making good the same 159. How to thicken woods that grow too thin 161. Lime-tree water exceeding precious to be used against convulsion fits 172. The second part of Englands Improvement containeth these severall heads viz 1. By sowing the Trefoyl or Claver and St. Foyne and the advantages thereby 2. By facilitating the great charge and burthen of the Plough with the figures of them 3. The planting of VVeld VVoad and Madder three great dying commodities 4. The planting of Hops Saffron and Liquorish and the profits thereof 5. The planting of Rape Cole-seed Hemp and Flax and their Increase 6. The Improvements that may be made by some Orchard and Garden fruits Chap. XXVI The best way of planting the Trefoyl or great Claver which is the highest advantage our English lands will produce 178. Chap. XXVII Speaks of the usage of S. Foyn 186. The descripoion of S. Foyn 187. The manner of sowing it 188. The second generall Peece of improvement contains the discourse of facilitating the charge and burden of the Plough and a demonstration of the figures thereof Chap XXVIII A descritpion of the plain Share 193. The Coulter how best made 195. The Dutch Coulter ibid. The best way for the tryall of a new plough 196. A good Character of a good Plough-man 198. Chap. XXIX The description of the severall Ploughs in use and the defects in some and the advantages oâ—hers have both from my own observations and otherwise to make up a compleat and easie Plough 199. The VVheel-plough described pag. 199. The description of the Turn-wrest Plough 201. The single wheel-plough 203. Chap. XXX Discovereth some generall faults that may be incident to all sorts of Ploughs with the description of Dutch and Norfolk Ploughs 206. Chap. XXXI Demonstrateth wherein the chief ease of the Plough consists with the easiest going plough and the advantages gained thereby 112. The description of the plain plough ibid. The benefit of a broad and short VVrest 113. Chap. XXXII Contains the applicatory part of the ploughs use wherein t s indeavoured to hold forth to what sort of Land and to what seasons or tilths of Land each plough is or may be most serviceable 116. The season for plowing for summer corn ibid. The season for plowing for winter corn ibid. A Plough to cast down Land 117. A Plough to set up land ibid. Chap. XXXIII Holds forth a description of a double plough carrying two furrows at once with a plough that shall both plough and harrow at one and the same time how to make a plough to last many years 123. The Third Peece of improvement treats of Weld Woad and Madder thee rich commodities for Dyers Chap. XXXIV Describeth Weld or Woad as some call it or more properly Dyers wâ—ed 125. The manner of sowing it at no cost ibid. Chap. XXXV Treats of Woad the Land best for it and Advantages thereby 127. The best Land for Woad 128. What price men will give for good woad-Woad-land ibid. Five or six Crops in one year of Woad 131. The advantage of Woad 133. XXXVI Which discovers the nature use and advantage of Madder ibid. The description of Madder 135. The season of drawing the sets ibid. Madder formerly granted by Patent 137. The fourth
part of the Land by the severall casting up of much mould upon the Grass all which are hinderanees very great to the increase of the owner But for the Ant-hils if my opinion fail not excedingly they are grand enemies to the Grazier and Husbandmans advantage they destroy more than men observe I do beleeve that in some great Pastures in England there is one fourth part of the clear fruit of that Land lost by the multiplicity of them and little better in other pastures by the Molehills for although some are of opinion that the Ant-hills are little or no prejudice they are much mistaken and they will clearly bee convinced thereof if they will but either seriously consider the quantity of grass that groweth upon them or else consider the rareness of Cattle feeding upon them and then also consider the quantity of Ground and good Ground they cover will easily appear the great prejudice by them And that the sand and gravell washed from the Mole-hill is a great cause of rotting Sheep I absolutely affirm But thereto some may object they make more ground I Answer they do such as it is destroy a lesser good quantity of Land and add possibly a double bad but let them consider that this Addition is a great Substraction for if you weigh what I said before they bear little or no grass a little wild Time and speary harsh grass that Cattell eat not but a little thereof in case of hunger And I am sure they cover a great deal of good land Doe but really consider it upon experience made upon one Acre and thou shalt find that one Acre plain or bancked shall do as much service as an Acre and near an half shall do that is so hilly And again if you do not flatter your selves in your own judgments you will find that while the Land was plain if you consider the fruit it then yeelded and the Cattle it then maintained you will find there is no proportion between what it then kept and what it now maintaines for in my experience I find that old resty Land much overrun with these hills much degenerates and doth not nor hath of late yeares kept the former usuall Stock it kept before it grew so hilly and so old by near or about one fourth part which I am sure is as much or more advantage or clear profit the Grazier Breeder or Tenant need expect and although some will not acknowledge their experience herein yet many I am sure they find it by losing proof besides the danger of casting their Cattle and Sheep betwixt the Hills which oft destroyes them Another cause of Barrenness is Bogginess or Mieriness which turns all Lands both bad good and better into such a state of Barrenness unfruitfulness that it in some parts almost destroyes the Land and in other parts it wholly destroyes it and in some places makes it worse than nothing foâ— in stead of yeelding some fruit it not onely yeeldeth none but corrupts and prejudiceth other Lands on which it borders and it self most dangerous to mischieve the Goods or Chattell that do pasture upon the same and so may be accidentally many degrees worse than nothing Another cause of Barrenness is the Overflowing and constant abiding or resting of the waters of the Sea Fenns Rivers standing Lakes or Pools for be it fresh or salt water if it lye constantly upon it it assuredly destroyeth it although some more some less according to the deepness and barrenness of the water which covers it the soundness of the ground on which it lyeth so is the fruitfulness more or less perspicuous Some pretend strange causes which my plainess fathomes not nor much affects our Country Farmers now Yet one more I must not pass by that is such New Inventions for the Improving of Land discovered by some young Husband-man at experiences as I conceive the use wherof will rather destroy Land and wast a mans profits therupon than advance some such I have lately found in a little book called New Inventions for the Improving lands Printed for J. S. and sold at the sign of the Ball on Adling hill 1646. By which I fearing some willing to lay out themselvs in Husbandry experience should be beguiled by his so great overtures of Advantage I shall onely speak to two or three particulars and leave the rest to thy leisure to consider of First As to his manuring Plough manuring Wagon manuring Stone Corroding Harrow or Corroding Rakes which he pretends as Improvements so far as my shallow Principles will compass are likely to prove Impoverishers because while a man stands to dress his Land with fine mould in which is a little strength his Land decayes for want of good soyl or ranck muck which he may sooner lay on work into his Land by the old way than he may his fine earth by his new devised mysticall Instruments not one of them discovered neither but puzzle thy self thou mayst about the thoughts thereof and though thou givest twice as much for the book as it is worth for so thou must thou art but where thou wast at first And for his Seed-Barrâ—w could he but hold that forth to set Corn as he pretends it might be of some good use because certainly setting Corn could it be done with speed and at a certain depth and well covered would be worth discovering but of this I have as little hope and as low an esteem as of his other aforesaid Instruments because he holds it out to contain one Tunnell onely for his Seed which did it contain a hundred would more likely prove for in setting one seed at once no Engine can come near the hand-setting as I conceive And this I charge as a great prejudice and may be as a barrenning the land while men stand looking for great things they neglect their ordinary and old way of Hushandry far better Another cause of Barrenness which this Gentleman puts as a meanes of Improvement is the setting up or banking into a mans land the Rain water or cold Spring water and then trampling in dung by carting and cattell as he saith will raise and increase mire and dirt and so it will I must confess but what that mireand dirt is worth I know not the dung would be excellent good of it self but what it will be in this course of husbandry I not only much question but affirm that in all my experience that treading poching and holing land in winter was an exceeding great hinderance to Corn or Grass that Spring nay some Land I have known so poched by Cattels treading though fothered upon the same both in Kent and Essex and many other parts that it hath not recovered of divers years And what strength or vertue cold spring-water or rain-water hath to fatten any land I know not but wonder then how we have any barren land in England And to make good his Assertion he appeales to them that
float Land by Rivers whose practice clean confutes his opinion who study to drain their Land as fast as float it and the best and most skilfull of them will drown none at all unless for a day or two but drain as fast and draw off as fast as they bring it on And to prove his Tenent he affirms how advantageous it will be in keeping up the flouds by his inbankments to secure the Fens from drowning which is as likely as to keep the Sea from flowing after ebbing for he that will make banks to keep in Land-flouds may as well make a hedge to keep in the Cuckow and whereas he pretends hereby to raise new Springs that may be sure I am he will raise new Quick-sands and what good use they are of I am yet to learn And for Barren Land which he seemes so well skilled in the Improvement which he desires to purchase I will help him to enough if he will either be pleased to return a miâ—d answer if my plainess have offended him or else practically make good what he hath affirmed for that a man doth do is far more credible than that he affirmes he can do Many other causes of offences might be spoken unto but they are referred to a more proper Opportunity wherein they may receive a more suitable capacity of removall and will be dropped into the discourse at large as occasion most seasonably is administred And so I proceed to the Recoveries of the said Barrenness But before I descend to the particulars consider the severall sorts of Lands that will admit of Improvement Which I consider under two Generall Heads First all inclosed Severall Land whether Meadow or Pasture Secondly Common Lands whether Arable or Grazing First Severall inclosed Lands I divide into three sorts or else will rank them under three Heads 1 First shall be our worst sort of Lands of what nature soever they be from the value of one shilling per Acre to Ten shillings The Improvement whereof will fall under most of the six particular Pieces it being capable of most and greatest Improvement 2 Secondly is our middle sorts of Lands from the value of Ten shillings per Acre unto Twenty which falls naturally under the third Piece or way of Improvement yet is capable oft times to fall under some or most of the other Pieces also 3 Third shall be our richest Land from Twenty shillings per Acre to forty and from forty to three or four Pounds an Acre some of this sort will admit of very little or no Improvement having all Naturall and Artificiall experiments already made upon it but some others of this richer sort will admit of a very considerable Improvement and is principally discovered under the sixt Piece Neither can I say that all Lands without exception of the two former sorts may be Improved For possibly and out of question very much is Improved already and others may lie so void of any capacity of Improvement that either there may be none at all or else none that will raise such Improvements as will well and sufficiently requite the charge and cost bestowed but comparatively not much of this in England And my design is principally to hold onely forth possbilities of Improving at a far inferiour charge to the cost bestowed and the Improvement made from such materialls as generally are lost or little or no whit practised in most parts of the Land The second Generall are our common Lands whether errable constantly unde Tillage such as are our common fields all the fieldon or field Land throughout the Nation of which there may be three sorts also Bad Better Best of all and all and every part thereof may be very much and manifoldly advanced under some or all of the aforesaid Pieces or else whether it be Commons or Commune of Pastures upon those great and vast Commons called Heaths Forrests Moores Marshes Meades or whatsoever of them Those also may admit of a very great Advancement and these Lands will fall familiarly under every Piece according to their severall values and capacities but most especially under the third and fourth Piece treating of Tillage and Inclosure And then I shall proceed to shew you the nature of each sorts of Lands whereby the Remedies will be most facile and easie in the application And so I have ended the first Generall The second Generall Head holds forth the severall meanes of Cure Or the reducement of Land unto Fruitfulness and Fertility discovered under the first Piece of Improvement of floating or watering Lands CHAP. III. Shewes the first Cure or Remedy against Barrenness and therein discourseth what Lands are most suitable to watering Aud how to gain watering upon the same BUt before I discourse the same at large I shall only say that there are severall Remedies against the said Barrenness or divers meanes of reducing these Lands to their naturall fruitfulness or to the Improvement of them to a more Supernaturall Advance than they were ever known to be To which I must premonish the Reader that here lyeth all the Skill and Kernell which being made forth in some good measure I hope will give thee such satisfaction that thou wilt not onely vouchsafe me the reading and thy credit thereto but also be a practioner therein Which done with delight will not onely produce the reall advantage here discovered but far greater For these things are and may be brought to a greater height of Advancement by how much the more Ingenuity and Activity is exercised in the Prosecution and Experimenting of them and to a greater discovery by a constant familiar use of them which is the true and reall end of his Discovery and the Proverb herein best will hold The more the Merrier The Cure followes now more largely ALl sorts of Lands of what nature or quality soever they be under what Climate soever of what constitution or condition soever of what face or character soever they be unless it be such as Naturally participates of so much fatness which Artificially it may be raised unto wil admit of a very large Improvement Yet the fattest Land was hath been or may be bettered by good husbandry And such are the Lands that lye near or bordering upon any River or small Brooks your little Rivers and Rivulets admitting of greater falls and descents than your bigger Rivers do which run more dull slow more dead and levell whereby little Opportunity will be gained of bringing but little Land to so great advance by them but where the greater Rivers can be gained over any Lands there will the Improvement be the greatest and the Lands made the richest the greater Rivers being usually the fruit-fullest having more Land-floods fall into them But under your lesser Brooks may your greatest quantities of Land be gained and your water most easily and with small charge be brought over greater parcels than upon greater Rivers 1 For the discovering of such Lands as lie
Sluces c. and the maintenance of the same for preservation of this charge and for the moee easy working the Improvement Take a most exact Survey of thy Water not by thy Eye onely but by and with a true exact Water Levell which is an instrument though plain and easy yet rarely made nor used among us which shall be largely described among other Tools in the tenth Chapter then either begin at the over end or neather end of thy Land which thou pleasest if at the over end where the water first entreth into thy Land And by thy Levell discover and plot out where thy water will go along thy Land as thou goest downeward that so thou maiest lose no Land that will easily be brought under thy water Then cut out thy Master Trench or Water-course if thou pleasest to such a bigness as may contain all thy Land-floud especially to bring it within thy Land and so bring down thy whole Water-course together But the most certainest way is as soon as thou hast brought thy Water within thy Land upon the superficies of it then carry it along in a foot broad Trench or lesser all along thy Levell which Water will be a great help and a second and truer Levell than the other and in thy working of it thou shalt find all little enough too prevent too dead a Levell yet lose no Ground neither If thy Levell be too dead the lesser stream will follow thee so that a convenient descent must be minded also to give the water a fair and plausible passage or current all along And if thou discover in his lesser Trench any mistake or failing then thou mayest with more ease and less charge amend the same easily by going higher upon thy Land or lower towards the water stop up the same again for thy Trench need be no deeper than the thickness of thy over Turff and cut out a new and so thou mayst most certainly demonstrate where thy main work shall go without hazard which will be a great certainty and little loss This done thou mayest cut out thy water-course and be sure it be large enough to contain the whole Water thou needest or intendest and so thou have longitude or length of ground the Trench must be the broader not the deeper for a shallow Trench is best for this work And when thou hast brought it so far into thy land as thou hast any land to work upon thou mayst a little narrow thy Course as thou seest the quantity of thy land or water requires so far as thou wouldest have thy course float over all at once thou must cut thy trench narrower narrower all along to the neather end that so without stops and staies it may flow all along at once the Trench being narrower and narrower that Water that comes within the Trench when it is wider must needs be thrust out when the narrower cannot contain it for here is the true excellency of this sort of Trenches and thus should all thy floating Trenches bee made in every work As soon as thou hast brought thy water upon thy Land and turned it over or upon it then as aforesaid be sure thou take it off as speedy as possibly and so fail not to cut out thy work so as unless thy Land bee very sound and thy Land-floud very Rich thou must take it off the sooner by a deep drayning Trench therefore I prescribe thee no certain breadth betwixt floating and drayning Trenches but if thy Land is sounder and Dryer or lieth more Descending thou mayest let it run the broader and as the Land is Moyst Sad Rushey and Levell let it run the lesser breadth or compass And for thy drayning Trench it must bee made so deep that it goe to the bottom of the cold spewing moyst water that feeds the Flagg and Rush for the wideness of it use thine own liberty but bee sure to make it so wide as thou mayest goe to the bottom of it which must bee so low as any moysture lyeth which moysture usually lyeth under the over and second swarth of the Earth in some Gravell or Sand or else where some greater Stones are mixt with clay under which thou must go half one Spades graft deep at lest Yea suppose this corruption that feeds and nourisheth the Rush or Flagg should lie a yard or four foot deep to the bottom of it thou must go if ever thou wilt drain it to purpose or make the utmost advantage of either floating or draining without which thy water cannot have its kindly Operation for though the water fatten naturally yet still this Coldness and Moisture lies gnawing within and not being taken clean away it eats out what the Water fattens And this also I must desire thee seriously to observe that as soon as thy Water hath spent it self and the Earth or Grass hath exhausted and drawn out of the Water her strength and richness then how long soever it runs longer and further it prejudiceth and corrupts it by breeding the Rushes in abundance The water running trickling among the Grass and upon the Earth leaving her Thickness Soyl or Filth which I call Richness among the Grass and upon the Earth and it self runneth away into the drayning Trench and troubles thee no more and so the Goodness of the Water is as it were Ridled Screened and Strained out into the Land and the Leaness slideth away from thee which can never be done neither so speedily nor so purely by standing on Lakes or Pooles besides the loss of the Grazing which may be near as good in Winter as in Summer upon a good Land-flood or rich Waters CHAP. V. Shewes the cause of water its fruitfulness and the proper season of watering Lands A Rich Land-flood is ever the washing down of great Road wayes Common Fields under Tillage or else from great Towns Houses or Dunghills The riches whereof is unvaluable Consider the goodness of thy Water if thy Water be a rich Land-flood or a lusty gallant Stream it will run further and wider upon thy Land with life and fruitfulness If lean thin and onely from Springs and Herbs or green soard t is more barren and so will operate upon less Lands so that as I said before thou must well observe both Land and Waters suitableness and so increase the latitude or breadth of thy Land thou intendest to improve with that stream before it fall into his Drain Which Drain thou must dig or make straight down as it were by a Perpendicular plum-Line which will drain the best of all Or else thou mayest make thy Drain or Trench somewhat Taper viz Narrower and Narrower downwards which will keep open the best and continue longest and for the Widness of it that must be resolved both from the nature of the ground which if Sound and Dry will require the less but if Moist and Boggy the Greater and Deeper or else from the quantity of Water it is
Lands which are from under such a Capacity of floating with Water And are onely such as are covered with constant Water and Lakes or else the Boggy Miry Lands it self and have no River or Land-flood to be brought over them and the remedies being equally applicatory to both for the most part I will propose generall remedies I say that Drayning is an excellent and chiefest meanes for their Reducement and for the depth of such Draynes I cannot possibly bound because I have not time and opportunity to take in all circumstances therefore in generall thus Be sure thy Draines be such and so deep and so deep as thou hast a descent in the end thereof to take away all thy water from thy Drayn to the very bottom or else it is to no use at all for suppose thou make thy Drain as high as an house and canst not take thy water from it thy work is lost for look how low soever is thy lowest levell in thy Drain thou mayst drain thy water so low and not one haires breadth lower will it drain thy ground than theu hast a fall or desent to take it cleanly from thy Drain therefore be especially carefull herein and then if thou canst get a low descent from thence carry thy Drain upon thy Levell untill thou art assuredly got under that moysture mirinesse or water that either offends thy Bog or covers thy Land and goe one Spades graft deeper by all meanes or thereabouts and then thou needest not tye thy self precisely to a dead Levell but as thy ground riseth or as the moysture lyeth higher so mayst thou rise also so that thou keep one Spades graft as aforesaid under it and that thou mayst not fall herein observe that in Cold Rushy Land this moysture or cold hungry water is found beneath the first and second swarth of thy Land and then oft-times thou commest immediately unto a little Gravill or Stoniness in which this water is and sometimes below this in a hungry gravell and many times this Gravell or Stoniness lyeth lower as aforesaid but in Boggy Land it usually lyeth deeper than in Rushy but to the bottom where the spewing Spring lyeth thou must goe and one spades depth or graft beneath how deep soever it be if thou wilt drain thy Land to purpose I am forced to use Repetions of some things because of the suitableness of the things to which they are applyed as also because of the slowness of peoples Apprehensions of them as appeares by the non-practise of them the which were ever you see drayning and trenching you shal rarely find few or none of them wrought to the bottom And for the matter or Bogg-maker that is most easily discovered for sometimes it lyeth within two foot of the top of the ground and sometimes and very usually within three or four foot yet also some lye far deeper six eight or nine foot and all these are feazable to be wrought and the Bog to be discovered but not untill thou come past the black Earth or Turf which usually is two or three foot thick unto another sort of Earth and sometimes to old Wood and Trees I mean the proportion and form thereof but the nature is turned as soft and tender as the earth it self which have layen there no man knowes how long and then to a white Earth many times like Lime as the Tanner and white-Tawer takes out their Lime-pits and then to a Gravell or Sand where the water lyeth and then one Spades depth clearly under this which is indeed nothing else but a spring that would fain burst forth at some certain place which if it did clearly break out and run quick and lively as other Springs do thy Bog would dy but being held down by the power and weight of the Earth that opposeth the Spring which boyles and workes up into the Earth and as it were blowes it up and filleth the Earth with Wind as I may call it and makes it swell and rise like a Puf-ball as seldom or never you shall find any Bogg but it lyeth higher and rising from the adjacent Land to it so that I beleeve could you possibly light of the very place where the Spring naturally lyeth you need but open that very place to your Quick-spring and give it a clear vent and certainly your Bog would decay by reason whereof it hath so corrupted and swoln the Earth as a Dropsie doth the Body for if you observe the Mould it is very light and hollow and three foot square thereof is not above the weight of one sollid foot of naturall Earth Clay or Land whereby I conceive that how much soever this Mould is forced from the naturall weight or hardness of solid Earth or Clay so much it is corrupted swoln or increased and blown up and so much it must be taken down or let forth before ever it be reduced I therefore prescribe this direction viz. Go to the bottom of the Bog and there make a Trench in the sound ground or else in some old Ditch so low as thou verily conceivest thy self assuredly under the Levell of the Spring or spewing water and then carry up thy Trench into thy Bog straight through the middle of it one foot under that Spring or spewing water upon thy Levell unless it rise higher as many times the water or Spring riseth as the Land riseth and sometimes lyeth very levell unto the very head of thy Bog unto which thou must carry thy Drain or within two or three yards of the very head of it and then strike another Trench overthwart the very head both wayes from that middle Trench as far as thy Bog goeth all along to the very end of it still continuing one foot at least under the same and possibly this may work a strange change in the ground of it self without any more Trenching But for these common and many Trenches oft times crooked too that men usually make in their Boggy grounds some one foot some Two never having respect to the cause or matter that maketh the Bog to take that way I say away with them as a great piece of Folly lost labour and spoyl which I desire as well to preserve the Reader from as to put him upon any profitable Experiment for truly they do far more hurt than good destroy with their Trench and Earth cast out half their Land danger their Cattell and when the Trench is old it stoppeth more than it taketh away when it is new as to the destroying the Bog it doth just nothing onely take away a little water which falles from the heavens and weakens the Bog nothing at all and to the end it pretends is of no use for the cause thereof lyeth beneath and under the bottom of all their workes and so remaines as fruitfull to the Bog as before and more secure from reducement than if nothing was done at all upon it Or thus thou mayst work
to truth as may be and leave the Compleatment to succeeders 1. What Fen-drayning or the recovering of Lands from under water is that deserves the name or merits the Title of perfect Drayning I say it is not onely the overly taking away the Water from off the Surface or over part of the Turf or Sword for then might all bogs or quagmires be recovered and easily would Nor the taking off the downfalls as our Fen men call them that is the waters falling from the Heavens in great Raines and showers Nor is it the taking off all Land-falls Land-floods or great waters from off those Lands No nor the doing of all these in a customary and usuall way that doth or will deserve to be called a perfect Drayning But it is as I formerly said about recovering boggy-Boggy-Lands a going to the bottom of the Corruption and taking away the Venom that feeds the Fen or Moor that wateriness and coldness which gnaws out the spirit at the root And the taking away this is perfect Drayning for although I say the other Draynings are not the best nor perfect yet I neither discommend the other nor discourage from them where they are made already or may be made he reafter but highly commend them or any of them where otherwise there would be none or the Lands lye wholly drowned yet being in all Arts Trades and Callings we ought to study cut the Mysteries thereof and all men do or ought to entdeavour to raise the richest fruits and draw forth the greaest plenty to the Common-Wealth they can out of the whole Earth so out of this small parcell we never accomplish The End untill we have brought it to it's best perfection that is not onely to recover it from drowning to bearing sedge or reedy flaggy grass which is the first fruits of Draining and from which the rude ignorant Fen-man desires no appeal nor is it to recover it to bear morish foul strong grass in Summer and Drowned in Winter nor yet to lye dry both Winter and Summer upon the Surface of the Earth and wet and Boggy at the spades or Plough-share point nay though it will through a dry season or heat of Summer bear the Plough and much of it may be converted to Tillage or Corning but still unsound in the bottom all this makes not though a good yet not perfect work but the perfection is in the reducing it to soundness and perfectness of Mould and Earth whether Sand Clay Gravell or mixed then returns it to a perfect Soard and pure Turf brings forth the small common Thistle Clover Crowflower and Hony-sukle then shall you reap the Quintessence of the Earth in breeding feeding or Corning These Lands thus perfectly Drayned will return to be the richest of all your Lands and the better Drayned the better Land Where are your richest Lands of England but your River Lands your Marsh Lands that all of them lye under the Levell of the Sea and were it not inbounded by the banks and the power of Gods word would all return to the Sea again but through their perfect Drayning are most excellent sound and warm Lands yea some of them so good that usually the Winters profit of their Grazing equallizeth the Summer as witnesseth much of the Marsh-Land near London Blackwall c. with many other parts Whence is the richness of your English Holland Land but from the pure and perfect Drayning And the out-landish Holland Lands recovered to this great height of Richness I know all Lands are not so Fecible as others are nor some cannot possibly be brought to that perfection as others may I shall provoke unto the best Improvement and where there can be a Male-Improvement offer not to the Common-Wealth a Female and so you have as plain a description what Drayning is as I can give you I am of a strong opinon that there is very much Fen-Land may be recovered to as great a worth and goodness in it self as any Meadow Marsh-Land in England which leades me to the second branch of this particular to describe the Manner and lying of the Fens to the which I am induced too for these Reasons 1. Because many know them not at all 2. Because many are discouraged from the thoughts of attempting the Improvement of them that are very able thereunto I am confident would have recovered them yet partly because of their ignorance of the lying of them conceiving them to be some great Lake Pan or Meer as are some in Lancashire Cheshire or Yorkshire that lyeth so low that hath no fall or out-let can be made to drain out the Waters of them and partly through the scandall and offence that is taken and given out by rude customary and most an end unrightfull Commoners against the Drayning of them as also conceiving them to be nothing els but some great Bog or Quagmire lying so flat as is not Draynable 3. Because my self was once before I knew them in some measure thus deceived but especially because the report of the Country people was as one man that the undertakers Drayning had no whit at all advantaged them but that their Fen Lawes and Commission of sewers and the works they made through that authority and by the directions and meanes they used had brought the Fens into as good a posture as all he undertakers works the which my self was hardly drawn to believe endeavouring hereby to suggest the impossibility of ever accomplishing a perfect Drayning so that many not knowing that the fall is considerable in it self and very great into the Sea by reason of the Ebbing of the Water will thereby give opportunity unto a most compleat Drayning of them And lastly that by this information I may quicken all Ingenuous Spirits to the helping on the work so advantagious to the Common good and yet so fecible I therefore describe the Fens of England to lie in some proportionable manner to those great Rivers and gallant Meadows adjoyning to them in many eveâ— and less descending Countries onely with these two observations 1. That these Fens are nearer the Sea the Center of the waters and so we must conceive the fall or descent to be the lesser for as our lesser Brooks run quicker than our great Streams and the bigger the stream and nearer the Sea any great River runneth the slower by far the water descendeth and flatter the Land lyeth so the Fens being a far vaster and greater compass lye more flatter and the Rivers run the slower 2. Because these Fen-Lands being far greater and many times more broader than our greatest Meadowes therefore being covered with water and lying more levell will not Drain so fast and so can not hold comparison in each particular yet a more suitable Modell to describe them by to those that know them not I cannot Frame So that the Fen-Lands so called are as I may say great Meadows covered over with water in the time of a great Land-flood
have heard very many object that matchless prejudice by so tedious and thin Soarding and have affirmed they have tried it by experience and find plowing wofully destructive And if you should demand how many years they plowed it they must needs answer some 5 some 6 some 7 some 8 and some 10 and others more and if you again ask them how they laid it down they must say for the general they cast them down and left an open Ridge to grass and if you should again demand upon what stubbles or eadish did you lay down your Land for grass some say upon the Peas stubble or Barley and here there one upon the Oats which is better than either of the former but none say upon Wheat or Rie which I as highly commend and for the first yeares Soarding goes beyond them all they neither bestowed any soil upon it first nor so much as a few hay-seeds at laying down and yet they will tell you a story of I know not what experiences they have made when alas they never knew that an Experiment must hold in all its parts and relate to times seasons natures as well as fruit and crop and so bring an ill report upon the best husbandry and stifle their own greatest gain But of this no more because in other parts of the Book it is more largely discussed yet bear with me if repeated because this is the discovery of the husbanding of a new World as a man may call it I proceed to the Third sort which is your lowest land of all and lieth deep and long drowned that it is even turned to very Turf or Bog and very little useful onely two or three months in summer it is commonable but whether profitable or no I scarce know nor being a stranger both in those parts to those Lands will I be peremptorily confident in any thing as will not hold proportion and use with other Lands I shall therefore only question whether in commâ—ning upon these Lands they do not oft stiflle their cattell in the morishest places whether they rot them not or choke them not through many uncurable diseases by reason of the unwholsomness of their pasturage This I dare affirm I have seen many poor thin cattel which have brought Pharaohs lean ill favoured kine into my mind and such truly as I have not so familiarly seen upon heathy barren Commons ten Acres whereof is not worth one of these and yet thousands are prejudiced against the draining of them but to the Land it self being recovered and laid dry it will require more time to recover it self than the other better Lands require more cost and husbandry to bring it to Fertility and though all the preceding directions are or may be applyable here unto it in their propor Seasons yet some other work may be more naturall as a ground-work to other Husbandry and that chiefly upon your hassocky morish rough Land the which being left to grass I cannot conceive it worth in its present state not above 3 or 4s. per Acre and some under and yet that very same Land by paines and patience may recover to be very good Land immediately I shall therefore advise that this Land be turved or as some call it denshired that is all the hassocks cut up and the over-turf parted up and all laid upon little heaps till throughly dry and then burned to ashes and if it be all stringy rooty and very combustible matter then the thicker you pare it up the better for although I differ from many of the West-Country Husbands about this denshiring their thin turved Lands that are pure from roots twitch or moss conceiving that though it bring their Land into sudden Tillage and to yeeld out it's Spirit the first year it weakens the Land much there being no addition to it but a few bushels of ashes to an Acre in stead of good Turf or Soard that in a Summers working will be easily brought to Tillage and as I believe ads more by far to the fatting of the Land than those ashes do and I am sure when any one layeth down his lands to grass upon this Husbandry the Soard comes pale and wan and very lean and low and never riseth to a good Crop and whosoever seriously observes the same shal find that very issue yet to Lands of this nature I as highly extoll it and to all such foul Lands where is depth of soil enough and all so combustible as nothing else will work it unto Tillage In the midst of May or any time in the very beginning of Summer when the Land is thorough dry is best and the earliest also that you may have as much of the Summer as you can to the working of your other Tillages which being burned in a dry season proceed to plowing and ridging up your Lands and dividing them into such proportions as your drains will bear as is directed in the aforesaid last particular this will then be fit to take the impress of any seed much of this will bear Cole-seed or any grain which I leave to the discretion of the Country Experiences onely pray you study laying all sound and warm plow not too long and lay it down to grass either upon the Oat-stubble which will soard exceeding well the second year if not the first or upon wheat or Rie the Land harrowed and laid very smooth this will soard excedingly the first year as in other places of the Book I have at large discoursed And as your Land recovers soundness you will by your improving your own experiences have more Talents added to these you have more opportunities to raise 〈◊〉 advantages out of them Now to the conclusion of this Chapter I shall onely add a word or two of Sea-drowned Lands and it shall be very little because as to the improvements of them whatever hath been before spoken and applied to other Lands may be to these which being once recovered are very sound dry Land many of them and the rest may be reduced thereunto by good divisions and draines as in all other Marsh-Lands All the mystery of this is in the recovery of them which to discourse at large would be more tedious than profitable because as to the materials for imbanking or bounding the Sea whether Stone Chalk Wood or Earth little can be said because all must be referred to the conveniency and necessity of the place upon which they are requirable onely there must be great regard had to the force of the Sea that lies upon them and the strength and violence of the winds to which it lyeth most obnoxious for I am perswaded it is not so oft the Sea it self that makes the breach as the strength of the winds that forceth it over the banks neither can I prescribe the severall Locks or Water-gates necessary for letting out the Heavens water nor the bigness or strength of them that being proper to the place upon
they are and the sharper and curiously kept the better will they rid off work by far and the more easie and delightfull to the Workman and not fur and clog with Earth which makes the work go off very heavily The Third Piece of Improvement shews how to Enclose without offence and prevent Depopulation that is most common Attendant and Appurtenant to Enclosure and how to make Severall all Arable Common Field Lands and also all Common Heaths Moores Forrests Wasts to every particular Interests and the Common-wealths great Advantage CHAP. XI The Eleventh Chapter Treateth of Improving Land by Pasture Reproves Depopulation proves excellent advantage by Enclosure and taketh away the usuall Scandals layd upon it THis Piece of Improvement will be the better carryed on if we could but prevent two great Rocks men are apt to dash upon and keep the Medium betwixt both The one is so Extreme for Pasturing and Grazing as he will destroy Tillage and raising of Corn so he may convert all to Sheep Wooll and Cattell though the contrary be of incomparable more advantage Credit and Glory The other all for Tillage and Plowing that he will toyl all his dayes himself and Family for nothing in and upon his common arable Field Land up early and down late drudge and moyl and wear out himself and Family rather than he will cast how he may Improve his Lands by Impasturing and Enclosing of it whereby he may raise more profit in Sheep Wools Cattell and far more Corn also if he please upon every Acre For the discovering a little these self deceivers to themselves I shall speak a word or two more large to each Extreme The first Extreme is partly through so deep an Affectation of Tillage and plowing in Common although it be to his perpetuall slavery and drudgery all his dayes he will not leave it and especially through a prejudice he hath taken against Enclosure through some mens depopulation and oppression and destruction of Tillage that he will not approve hereof upon any Tearmes but oppose with all the might and main he can what saith he Enclose depopulate destroy the poor no our fathers lived well upon their land without Enclosure kept good hospitality many servants and bred up many children and abhominated the thoughts thereof and so will wee prevent it if we can wee will toyl and moyl all our dayes and breed up our children to keep sheep horse or beast kick up their heeles upon a bank flit our horses and breed them up to take our inheritance of Thirty Forty or Fifty pounds by the year with which few can scarce bring both ends together by the yeares end as dayly experience shewes they not once considering the fruit of Idleness not the great Improvement of this honest equall Enclosure nor their childrens ruin for want of learning Trade or good breeding the least whereof is better or may be better to them than all their lands Witness thousands in England that prefer their children better with a little good breediug with little portion than they can or usually do with all their inheritance The second extreme is as like the former as can be and is so prejudiciall to the Common-Wealth and destructive to good husbandry and it ariseth out of base private humour of sloth and self-will and want of a wise Spirit of discerning in Improvements and because he seeth some men have abused 〈◊〉 Pasture-Land by over plowing and took out the Spirit and life thereof that it will not come to it self of many yeares which is an ill piece of providence indeed therefore he will not plow any old Pasture Land at all upon any tearmes or for any time no though his Land be so decayed and impoverished that that Land which would have maintained much cattell will not now maintain so much by one third part or a quartern as it did after the first through soarding and by reason either of the wet and cold year or the overpowring of the moss or Anthills or some other trash it puts not that proof into Cattell nor scarce half as it did at the first Soarding nay though it calls loud for plowing and will be much bettered and the Rent doubled yet he will not have it plowed come what will What saith he destroy my old Pasture my sheep-walkes and beggar my Land all the world shall not perswade him to that you may as soon perswade him not to eat good wholesome food because some men overcharged their stom acks by excesse herein because here and there an indiscreet man did wrong his Land by excessive plowing he will not use it at all not moderately though he may Mend or better it thereby No saith he I can raise a constant profit by my Wool and lamb my fat beef and mutton at an easie quiet way unto my self and family without much vexing or turmoyling which is a gallant way of living and I shall exceedingly advise and commend it too until the Land degenerate and calls out for plowing or the Common-wealth calls out for corning and will yeeld far better advance therby he takes more content in a Sheep-heard and his dogg and in his own will and ease than in greater advantage and as the other Extreme will hinder all Improvements he can by way of Enclosure under pretence of overthrowing Tillage though a man may till as much get far more Corn in Pasture than in Common if he will so will this out o◠as vain and senseless pretences hinder all Corning in pasture lest he should prejudice his Land for grazing although he may moderate corning and better his Land to grazing also so have I erected a Sea-mark upon both these Rocks that all men may take heed of dashing themselves thereon the Ingenious I am sure will never come near them But for satisfaction to the first extreme maintayned by that generation of strange men that oppose Enclosure yet see every day the Rents of those Lands Improved some doubled some more some less and the Land certainly advanced by it one Acre made worth three or four and after a while will bear more Corn without soyl for three or four year than divers Acres as it was before in Common that onely say Enclosure may as easily be made without depopulation as with it and to the other Extreme I am not ashamed maintain as a reproof to this Extreme that many ten thousand Acres of Land in England may yeeld a double profit divers yeares by plowing and afterwards yeeld as much rent as ever before and possibly much more Nay I 'll say observe my Directions punctually and I 'll make good the old Rent the very first year after Plowing and begin to enter upon it as soon as the Crop is reaped off and begin my year with Winter too which is accounted the worst advantage to the Tenant and so for Seven Ten or Twenty upon many sorts of Lands in England of the aforesaid Value But to stop the
I the managing it whilst under Tillage I would make good the same upon good Security But as I said before use your own liberty he that Plows not such Land at all that yeelds its utmost strength and fruit in Grazing which admits of no Corruption or Degeneration doth wel Because the Nation will afford other Land enough that stands in more need of this Husbandry to supply the Country Corn And also because many men hold it a great Disparagement to Plow up such gallant Pasture from whom I do very little or nothing dissent in Judgement yet he that if by Plowing can Advance the Publique and himself also I dare not say but he doth better yet neither much amiss Every man herein may please his own affection where the Common-wealth is not eminently prejudiced But for other wayes of Improvement of the Richest sort of Land I know little more worth Divulging for either the Cost and Charge expended will not produce an answerable present Advantage or else the continuance and certainty of future hopes may prove doubtfull Which uncertainties I affect not onely take this remembrance with thee that if thy Pasture be very Vast and Large Lesser Divisions will set the dearer and better and every mans money for Conveniency when greater are bargains for few men and those for great ones also that will make their own Advantage yet use moderation herein also A large Pasture is comely and a little Pingle Inconvenient Extremes are neither for Credit nor Profit but for Destruction A Pasture about one hundred or sixscore Acres or a hundred and fifty Acres is very commendable where they lye remote and at good distance from great Market-Towns or where Pasturing is very plentifull but if either Pasture-Land be scarce or border upon Common Fields or Heaths or Forrests or if they lye near or adjoynining to any good Market or great City lesser divisions wil farre out-vy with greater in their price advantage the people lying under such necessities of Pasturage some to help to relieve their Common and others to relieve the necessities of their own neighbouring Families But in thy Divisions be sure to make them alwaies in the lowest parts of thy Lands that so thy Ditches may serve in stead of Draines or Conveyances of Water or taking away the Coldness that offends thy Land every mans own Experience will patronize this Position But secondly when any of these Rich Lands shall Degenerate into Mossiness Rushes Coldness or Over-grow with Weeds Nettles Hemlocks Sow-Thistles c then thy Land wil need good Husbandry and wil admit of Improvement for Hemlocks Nettles Docks Chick-weeds and other common Weeds these are as much occasioned with Fatness and too much Richness as from any other cause And when from this cause no cure like Plowing for that brings profit with the Cure and advance in the very Reducement there is much Land of this Fatness Some there is in divess parts of this Nation as about Hay-Stacks or Sheep-Pens or places of Shade or in the Warmest parts of many Pastures which Sheep and Cattell chuse alway for their Lieare and very much about the heads of Conney-Berries All which according to former Direction in Plowing old Resty Land will Reduce this to Moderation in over much Rankness And especially if it be Plowed somewhat oftner than the other sorts of Lands it will bear near as many more Crops without prejudice and no other means whatsover will so Surely Feacibly and Profitably work this Effect in my Experience viz. To destroy the Weeds and reduce it to perfect Grazing And as your Land degenerates to Mossiness Rushes and Coldness none will deny the wonderfull certain change and alteration thereof by Plowing if they should I conceive I have sufficiently cleared it where I have discoursed of the second sort of Land at large in the thirteenth fourteenth and fifteenth Chapters and answered severall Objections made against the same yet one or two more remains to be Objected Bear with me I say the more herein as Coveting to beguile men of such Prejudice as possesseth most and so deeply rooted as will ask hot water to Mattock up Some say they have fouâ—d the contrary their Land not Soarding of many years after and when it hath come to Soard it hath been neither so Rich Thick nor Fruitfull therefore Prejudiced by Plowing All which I Eccho with thee that possibly it may be so and yet this may not reach too nor in the least weaken my Propositions which give direction onely to three or four Crops at most unless in case of Weeds and Nettles and too much Fatness I never advise to Plow thy Land so long to bring it to this I abominate such Husbandry neither do I absolutely perswade to the Plowing of all Lands without Exception well knowing that in some parts of this Nation there are some Lands so Binding so Tough a Sodering Clay Cold that it will neither Soard so thick nor quick as others will which sort of Land if Rich and Sweet will less Advance by Plowing than any other but to this sort of Land as it doth degenerate and decay use it as a Medicine and use it as according to former Rules and lay down thy Land according to former Limitations question not though it Soard not so soon as other Lands Mixed Light more Loosened yet it shal both Soard so Timely so Richly as it shall counter-profit all thy prejudice And for other Lands either Gravelly Light Warm and Sandy or else Mixed and Compounded I dare affirm some Land the first year may be full as good as it was before Plowing I have known a Winter Stubble after the Crop was Inned of some Pastures worth as much that Winter half year as it usually was worth any Winter upon the old Soard yet hath not bin Pastured the whole half year neither nay some have been worth as much as the said Lands have bin worth almost the whole year The Eadish hath bin so fruitfull and my self have had the like Profits and Advantages and have had a Wheat Stubble of my own being the third Crop that will make good what I have Affirmed and the very first year of Grazing full as good if not better than it was upon the old Turf before Plowing They that cannot manage this Objection further yet confess and say 't is true for two or three of the first years it may possibly hold fruitfull but it shall fall after seven eight or ten or more years after that it shall be worse than ever To this I can say little more than what I have said before unless you can produce me some Experiment wherein my directions have been observed and your Prejudice succeeded otherwise you say nothing which Experiment when you have found I shall not question but to discover your mistake either you are mistaken in the nature of the Land or else
there would not be one foot of ground more lost but a double or treble Advantage raised upon it in few yeares and ever after with no other Husbandry continued but ever bring in double profit for the charge bestowed As in the cutting plashing scouring of the Hedges which payes his cost bestowed and sometimes double and treble and if it be a Hedge curiously preserved and cut just in his ripest season before it begin to die i' th' bottom and have in it either good store of great Wood or Fruit-Trees planted among the profits may arisâ— to much more than is here spoken of CHAP. XVII Wherein I proceed to a second sort of Land somewhat Inferiour to the former wherein is discoursed the destruction of the Rush Flag and Mare-blab altering the Coldness of Nature and the preventing the standing Winters Water and destroying Ant and Mole-hills c. All which are most incident to this second sort of Land THis which I call a second sort is our midling Land I delight in plainess and avoyd all Language darkning the plainest sense or whatsoever may occasion mysteriousness or confusion in the reading or practice so that this middle sort of Lands as aforesaid is all such Lands that are betwixt the value of twenty shillings per Acre and six shiliings eight pence per Acre which sort of Lands as they lye under a capacity of the greatest Improvement I have handled them at large in the foregoing Discourse especially under the four first Pieces of Improvement But as they lye under a Capacity of a moderate and less Improvement fall here to be discoursed and although I call it a moderate Improvement yet being well Husbandred according to the subsequent directions may produce a double increase and some far more and some less but in all a considerable advantage enough to encourage to the prosecution And possibly some of these Lands may be of the richest and first sort naturally but by some Improvidence or ill Husbandry being degenerate are faln under this second and that where the Rush either hard or soft prevaileth or else where the Land lyeth so flat cold and moyst that the Flag or Marâ—-blab thriveth I shall here onely apply one remedy for the removall of them all to avoid Tediousness which is most naturall thereto and cannot fail being punctually observed and that is a way all men use already though to little purpose which is to indeavour Drayning of the same as you shall see in most mens Lands both Pasture and Common â—ull of Trenches as they can hold to their great cost and loss of abundance of good Land devoured in the Trenches Heaps and banks they make and yet all is of little use the Rush as fruitfull and the Land as cold as formerly in comparison Therefore I shall advise far less Trenching and yet produce more soundness I say then as I have often said seek out the lowest part of thy Land and there make either a large Trench or good Ditch or be it but the old one well scoured up if there be one to such a Depth as may carry away that water or Corruption that feeds the Rush or Flag from every other upper Trench thou shalt see cause to make and so ascend to any part of thy Land where these offences are carrying with thee one Master Trench to receive all thy less Draines along with thee and there make a Drain yea all thy Draines and Trenches so deep for I prescribe no certain depth as to that Cold spewing water that lyeth at the bottom of the Rush or Flag which alway either lyeth in a Vein of Sand and Gravell mixed or Gravell or Clay and stones mixed as aforesaid and thence will issue a little water especially making thy Trench half a foot or one Foot deeper into which will soak the Rushes food which being laid Dry and Drayned away cannot grow but needs dye and wither It is impossible without going to the bottome to do any good Our own experience shews it and so the depth may be two Spades graâ—t or more however to the bottom thou must go and then one Trench shall do as much good as twenty alwaies curiously observing that thy Trenches run in the lowest part of thy Ground and through the Coldest and most quealiest parts of thy Lands and for the manner of making the same and further Direction therin I shall refer thee back unto the second Piece the seventh Chapter where I have spoken something to most of the aforesaid Passages But if thy Land lyes upon a Flat or upon a Levell and have many great wide Balks of which there wil be no end of Trenching or Drayning I must then assure thee it is to little purpose yet art not left remediless for this insuing direction will not fail and will bring profit with it to pay for curing also which is a moderate Plowing Ridging all thy Balks raising and Landing all thy Flats gaining them as high as possibly thou canst Plow all and leave none and do this three yeares together and observe such former Directions as are contained in the thirteenth fourteenth and fifteenth Chapters in the third Piece of Improvement And by the blessing of God expect the issue promised It will lay Land sound and dry more warm and healthfull than formerly destroy the Rush and many other Annoyances beyond Expectation I have been forced to be more large to speak twice to one thing because of the suitableness thereof unto these Lands but especially because I cannot speak enough to make some to understand it nor others to set upon the Practise and more especially because the Reader may miss the reading of it in the former part unless he take the paines as few do deliberately to read the whole Therefore if thou wilt forgive this fault I le mend the next As for the Mole-hils so great an Enemy to the Husbandman and Grazier there is so much Experience made for their Destruction that almost every Ingenuous man is grown a Moal-catcher in many parts and that is a certain way yet in many parts men are Slothful that because all their Neighbours wil not kil them therfore they wil not so they suffer their Land one third part to be turned up There is a Law to compell men to Ring their Swine to prevent their Rooting it were more advantage to the CoÌ„mon-Weal a severe Law were made to Compell all men to keep the Moal from Rooting for he destroyes abundance of Grass he covers with the Mould and Corn he throws up by the Roots which utterly perisheth Spoyls the Mâ—wers work and Tools and raiseth Balks in Meads and Pastures besides the work he makes the Husbandman to spread some of them the Cost whereof were it but bestowed in Moal-killing would prevent the aforesaid losses And although I can make no new Addition to the Moales Destruction there being so many Artists with the Moalâ—staff Tines and
the Flaunders Husbandry but shall affirm that one acre after the Corn is cut the very next year if it be well Husbandryed and kind thick Claver may be worth twenty Marks or twelve pound and so downward as it degenerates weaker less worth In Brabant they speak of keeping four Cowes Winter and Summer some cut and laid up for fodder others cut and eaten green but I have credibly heard of some in England that upon about one Acre have kept four Coach horses and more al Summer long but if it keep but two Cowes it is advantage enough upon such Lands as never kept one But I conceive best for us untill we be come into a stock of Seed to mow the first Crop in the midst or end of May and lay that up for hay although it will go very near together yet if it grow not too strong it will be exceeding good and rich and feed any thing and reserve the next for Seed And if we can bring it up to perfect seed and it will but yeeld four bushels upon an acre it will amount to more than I speak of by far every bushel being wooth three or four pound a bushel and then the after math or eadish that year may put up three midling Runts upon an acre and feed them up all which layd together will make up an Improvement sufficient and yet this propety it hath also that after the three or four first years of Clovering it will so frame the earth that it will be very fit to Corn agaen which will be a very great advantage First to corn your Land which usuall yeelds a far better profit than grasing and sometimes a double profit and sometimes more near a treble profit and then to Clover it again which will afford a treble fouâ—fold yea 10 or 12 fold Advance if not more And so if you consider one Acre of land with the Claver and Husbandry thereof may stand you the first year in twenty five shilling the three other years not above ten shillings the Land being worth no more which may produce you yearly easily five six or eight pound per annum per Acre nay some will affirm ten or twelve pound or more then most of my Improvements promised are made good as in my Frontspiece is he 'd forth under this first Piece of Improvement CHAP. XXVII Speaks of the usage of St. Foyne and La-lucern I Proceed to the discovering of the use and advantage of St. Foyne a French Grass of which I mnst use plain dealing and not put my Reader upon improbable experiment as is my chiefest aym And as in some part of my former discourse I promised to bring down to our practice some Out-landish Experiments which were hinted at and discovered unto Mr. Hartlib by Letter to be a great deficiencie to us in our Improvements the non-practice thereof so I must and will hold forth no more than I can make proof of to the face of the world Therefore my self having not made a full Experiment thereof onely I have sowed of it this year shall give the relation of the manner of the Husbandry thereof and the fruit you may rationally expect and the Lands upon which it is to be sowen and so leave it and you to your own experience and Gods blessing I shall not trouble you with the description of it as an Herbalist because as in this so in no other is it my design to search out the nature of any Herb or Plant in it self but as it is most profitable or usefull for my main design The Improvement of Land St. Eoyn is a French Grass much sowed there upon their barren dry hasky Lands and sometimes in our Gardens hath a kind of it been much sowed called the French Honysuckel it is of one excellent property yeeldeth abundance of Milk and upon that account may be very advantagious to many parts of the Nation it groweth best as it is said upon the barrennest lands hilly and mountainous which I am induced to beleeve upon this score because it is rendred to be worth but nine or ten shillings an Acre which some would not think worth experimenting but if so and it will grow upon our worst land I am sure there is thousand thousands of Acres in England not worth one shilling an Acre and if that being sowen upon such land it will with one sowing advance it to that worth and so continue for divers years it is very well worth our imitation and practice it will raise betwixt a load and a half and two load of an Acre Besides it is rendred to have another excellent quality which is not to barrennize Land but to better or fatten it and after seven years growing it so roots large and many somwhat like Licorish that the Plowing up of them is a very good soyl and much fattens the Land for Corn it is excellent for soarding Land the first year a great advantage It hath been sowed in divers parts of England as in Cobham Park in Kent c. where it thrived very well upon chalkie dry banks The seed is first to be had out of France where it is sold for about three pence or a groat a pound but here it was sold very dear at nine pence ten pence or twelve pence a pound this yrar It is most like a Parsnip seed only a little browner in colour and somewhat rounder and fuller made like an Oyster it is very light and so many pounds go to a strike and it must be sowed far more in quantity than you doe the Claver seed because it is so great a seed for ever the smaller the seed the further it goeth I conceive for every pound of Claver you sow you had need sow two of this if not more but I leave it to your own experience you will easily find a fitting proportion upon the first tryall but the thicker the closer it grows and stocks the ground the better and destroyes other seed or weeds The manner of sowing it may be with Oats or Barly so much as grows up with the Barley may be cut with it and then preserved or else if it be very fruitfull it may be moed in the latter end of the year and then preserve it for mowing for six or seven years after for by that time it will have lost the spirit of it and be overcome by our English grasses and then be fitter to plow for Corn again But if men will be at charge the best way commended to me is this to prepare your Lands and make them fine as when you sow barley and then plow in these seeds as the great Gardeners do their Pease yet not altogether at so great a distance but yet let them make their ranges near a foot distance one betwixt another and the grass will flourish like Pease especially if they draw the plow throngh them once or twice that summer to destroy all the weeds but whereas
well be too precise and better ploughs cannot be made than their Country affords and could better have been devised they would long since With hundreds more so childish as are not worth an Answer but these exceedingly stifle and choak Invention and will do my Readers Imitation of these rude Discoveries CHAP. XXIX The second Generall whereby I shall descend to the description of the severall Ploughes in use and shew you the defects in some and the Advantages others have and what Addition I can give both from my own Observations or otherwise to make up as compleat an easie Plough as my Experience will make out I Shall therefore confine my discourse to three or four sorts of ploughs First the Wheel-plough I mean the double wheeled plough 2. The single wheeled plough and the foot plough 3. The simple plain plough without wheel or foot 4. The Dutch Bastard or plain Dutch plough Many other sorts there are as some alter in their heads some in their Beams some in their Stilts c. and most in their Shares and all almost according to the Country of which they are of al which it were too endless to discourse but I onely name these because I conceive all these usefull in some sort of Land or other and a good husband had need be stored with two or three sorts of them at all times especially he that hath severall sorts of Lands of all which I shall say but little yet a word of each but I shall reserve the main of my discourse for those very particular branches of the plough that shall make out that I shall give ease therto And first as for the double wheeled plough commonly called the Wheel-ploug and is of most constant use in Hartfordshire and many up-Countries and is very usefull upon all flinty stony or hard gravell or any other hard Land whatsoever after it comes to be beyond its natural temper is an excellent good form a very usefull plow and very necessary that al great Corn-masters have one of these for strength that so he may not force his other plows which are made on purpose for lands in a Tillable cōdition so are made more light portable than these will bear to be but these will go and work well with a great strength when other ploughs will not to any purpose and because much addition of ease cannot be given to this plough which I shall not advise to but in the cases aforesaid when and where other ploughs cannot work these Lands being under an extreme And as to such extremes nor none else will any ordinary Rule hold that I may not work against the stream lest I swim alone I will only give you a short description with the draught or figure therof and as any addition may be given to the plough in any of its members it shall not be restrained from an application to this as wel as to any other This is usualy drawn with Horses or Oxen geered double two a breast and indeed so they draw the strongest but tread the Land the more but why they may not be put single in wet seasons or in dangerous times I know not This Wheel-plough is made of a strong clest Ash-beam about six foot long and is contrary to all other beams in the Compass of it the crook or compass wherof looketh upwards and the Land-handle thereof is placed at the great or neather end of the beam as other ploughs are for it is usually made with one handle and the plow-staff is instead of the Furrow-handle and is very long answerable to the length of the handle the length wherof I much approve and could wish it were observed in every plough whatsoever it tending much to the easie and certain holding of the plough The Sheath is made of the toughest youngest Ash and perfect dry that can be got and set with a very good mortess very much forward joynted exceeding true and close into the beam and driven up so exceeding hard with a bragget behind it to hold it from declining that it stands and will to its work in the strongest land whatsoever The Head is pitched as strongly at the neather end of the Sheath and Stilt as can be and pinned through both and the Share is pitched upon the Head at a very deep pitch and somewhat hanging that so the plough may goe much a shore because the holder usually goes two furrows off the plough wider on the near side the plough And as it is pitched deep near a full yard pitch so it is also very broad being near half a yard and that I conceive arises from the former Reason because of the mans going so far wide of his plough Their Shares are made exceeding narrow and very strong and runing out to a very exceeding long small point very well steeled and sometimes they add a Tush or Phin but they make it very narrow also and so it must needs be the hardness and stoniness of the land not admitting of it And the Coulter stands a little above the Share-point and not before it but rather behind it This Wheel-plough requires a great strength and the greater because of the great length they are made of which carrieth such a long and heavy weight of earth upon it that it adds exceedinly to the burthen of it which may be easily removed in some measure by contracting the plough into a shorter and somewhat narrower compass and taking off as much of the weight and load both of Wood and Iron as the strength of the work will bear upon which it is to be employed yet it being a very useful plough upon some lands at some seasons The Figure expect with the other ploughs There is another double Wheeled-plough it is called the Turn wrest plough which of all ploughs that ever I saw surpasseth for weight and clumsiness it is the most of use in Keut Picardy and Normandy and is called the Kentish plough with us The beam may be made of any wood for the bigness of it but Ash is best but the two handles are made of one forked peece of any wood and the beam tenanted into the Stlit below the Fork and so it runs down into the plough-head and is there tenanted and pinned into the head and as for the Sheath that is a good strong peece of dry Ash tenanted into the beam directly down right but looking forward at the neather end and fixed into the Head somewhat as other ploughs are but the Sheath far bigger downwards the plough-head is pitched at a very great depth or else at random for depth being carried with two Wheeles as the former but nothing like so neat nor easie and for bredth it is pitched just under the Beam upon a straight line and so it ought to be as you shall see anon As for any Shield or breast-board it hath none at all on either side the plough as all other have
land or plowing any flat land almost any plough wil doe well and so your broad-breasted ploughs will turn over a great furrow though your Shield-board have little compass but as to the setting up a Land or ridging it as most call it I would have a narrow brested plough with an exceeding whelming compassed Shield-board increasing both in the breast by small degrees and in the compass of the Shield-board with a very broad and short Wrest which adds one or two degrees of cast or compass to the Shield board for in this work you will most apparently see the ease and advantage thereof The Coulter having first done his office by going before and dividing out the furrow The Share his in cutting it up clear and raising it from the solid Land The breast of the Shield-board takes it and gives it a cast and turn that it is ready to fall The Wrest keeps its furrows breadth for the horses easie going and not suffer the furrow to drop short of its true place but least it should stand an edge The Heel or hinder end of the Shield-board comes being longer than the Wrest and standing as it were overlooking to see what it will leave and like a Ladies tryal gives the Furrow a sweep or a good check and bids it lye there in its proper place and not stand upon the edge And thus each member having done his office one taking it from another regularly must needs admit of the greatest ease A Saddle-tree is made of many peeces and some compass one way and some another but all to the true compass and easiness of the horse-back so a plough it might be made of fewer parts and lesser compass but that sewer will not give the true compass or cast of it and deliver his furrow upon the best advantage As for your ordinary seasons of plowing your Land being in good Tillage any well ordered and truly compassed plough will do you may help your self sufficiently in the making of your irons if you would have the edge of your lying furrow lye up higher which will yeeld most mould then set your Share-phin the shallower and set your plough the broader and hold it the more ashore the Plough-man going upon the Land and it will lay it with a sharp edge which is a gallant posture for almost any Land especially for the lay Turf beyond compare But if you would have you land lie most even and flat then set the Phin of your Share deeper or holding as some call it set your plough the narrower the holder alway alway going in the furrow and the Shield-board end will so humble it as you may lay it upon a levell this is best for land of which you will make a fallow or cut and burn the Turf or for land you intend to lay flat to grase If the furrow should be all at once turned at the very breast then it would go just as if you would put a Mold to root with her breech forward which plough I have seen but how the furrow would lie I know not nor well what strength to draw it but then there need neither be use of the hinder part of the Shield-board nor Wrest neither or if you would have it cast all in the Shield-board as some do that make no Wrest at all then it will either not clear up the furrow well set the furrow upon an edge or else the hinder end of the sheild board must whelm beyond all president or rule or if you would have it made so thin in the breast as to cut through like a knife and turn nothing till it come to the midst of the Shield-board and end of the Wrest and Shield-board then there it gives too sudden a check too and causeth the earth to choak and mouther upon the Breast board that it will not slip away with ease so that as I said before a medium in all each member doing its particular office preserves the health and comfort of the body These things and many more which might be ncessary I will forbear to speak to are accounted niceties among many the knowledge whereof hath cost me much and therefore am able to affirm that the very mystery of Ploughmanship lyeth upon the knowledge and practice of them and so I proceed to the double plough and the description thereof CHAP. XXXIII Holds forth a description of a double Plough carrying two Fuorows at once and both proportionable to a Furrow one ordinary plough shall carry With a plow that shall both plough and Harraw both at the same time and how to make a plough last a dozen years THe double plough shall be as plain as may be it shall consist of one long Beam of an ordinary length and another short one little above half the length of the other The first plough may be made up compleat in all the members thereof according to the last preceding description of the plain plough except the handles which may be very short only so long as may receive the Beam with the Land-handle and place the Shield-board on the furrow side which may be done without any but a round staff from the Beam to the Shield-board which handles excepted it is one compleat plough in all particulars The hinder end of the Beam is to be left a little stronger because of fastening the other beam firmly thereunto and then I proceed to the making of the hindermost Plough which must be made in all the members and branches like the other except the beam cutt off about three inches before the Coulter-hole and the handles of this at length and strength as an ordinary strong plough is made just according to the pattern of the plain plough Which being done and the handles upon the last plough you must set to the placing of it in his place which I discover thus the first plough standing in its working posture the other plough with is the handles to it to be affixed on the nearer side or left-hand one furrow breadth wider than the other just in the very same posture both for depth and breadth as the other doth and so held off from the first ploughs beam by alining or filling of wood just that substance as may continue it firm and fast to a just furrow and there drawn close and firm to that Master-beam with two small iron boults and a broad float or two of wood all which may be so keyed and cramped up that it may be as one solid beam and so move as the first moves either for height or depth which it must needs do and this I conceive may be best used with a plough-foot to guide the depth of it unless you place a wheel to that foremost beam but not in a false beam because I have not experience of applying this doubleness to those deep pitched ploughs but in the end of that beam you may have as good a mortess as your beam
decay it almost if thou hast but a reasonable quantity then thou must get it for the use of the drugsters and Apothecaries and the sets to plant again and then in the taking up of every root there will be one runner which hath little buds upon it the which may be divided and cut into a fingers length each so planted with one bud out of the ground set upright which makes very excellent good sets one runner will make many sets but these sets cannot be got up untill the Madder be taken away And having thus preserved it untill it come to a good crop if thou intendest it and hast a quantity sufficient to set up a Madder Mill having curiously dryed it as you do your hopps to a just perfect gage of drought Thou must provide all materials to that purpose the Mill I cannot well describe and it is exceeding curious to be made aright I do not hear of any one can do it yet possibly there may be some Engineer or some Dutch man here that can do it it being a common Mill in Holland and the Low-Countries which is the only place for Madder that I hear of in the World A rude discovery I could give but I wil forbear least any one taking pattern by it should abuse himself more and me in some measure yet here is the mystery of it so to pare of the husk that it may be if possible as the wheat is ground beflaked or flayed that it may go all one way which sort they call the mull Madder and is little worth not above nine or ten shillings a hundred and then you must take out the second sort called the number O which is the middle rind and is not worth so much as the third sort called the Crop madder by one sixth part and this crop Madder is the very heart and pitch of it inclining to the yellow and this lesser in quantity but better in quality by far Sometimes the best Madder is worth eight or nine pound a hundred and the number O is worth but six pound six shillings 8 pence or eight pound two shillings fix pence and sometimes it is not worth above four pound or five pound a hundred yea sometime it may come to three pound the hundred possibly because I would not abuse the Reader I advise my Madder-Planter to send over for a workman thence who can both describe the Engine and the manner of mixing sorting of it which is the greatest mystery and well worth your labour and pains it wil be At Barn-Elms was once Madder sowen brought to good perfection and a Mill erected by one Mr. Shipman the late Kings Gardner who had a Patent for it from the late King but being as I am informed a poor man was not able to carry it on for want of stock as I conceive these times coming on broke his new Plantation but on Mr Hassey bought his Madder which proved excellent good and sold it again to the Dyars who exceeding high commend it Which is sufficient proof to me that we may raise make as good as any is in the world why not as well as Holland our Lands both Marsh Fen abundanceof Up-land and Meadow is as rich dry and deep of soyl and good for it as theirs is and we have use enough for many thousand weight of it some Dyars using above a 100 pound a week a man The profit I shall not determine because it will be long before a thorough tryall can be made of it but now as it is planted in Gardens unspeakable advantages are made thereby and should it hold that proportion when it comes to be made up and compleated to the Dyars it would prove the richest commodity that I know sowed in England I hear Sir Nicholas Crisp is erecting a Plantation of it his ingenuity is to be commended highly in many things for his publique spiritedness countenanced in a work that is so likely to tend to the publique good I know none can drive on publique ends without private aims neither know I wel why he should to his own ruin but he that drives on his private so as the publique shall be most advanced from men deserves great honor and thou that repinest set such another work on foot and then thou wilt grow more charitable But I shall say no more but humbly pray all encouragement may be given hereunto for could it be brought to that perfection as Woad is here it might be as great an addition to the nation as any thing I can discover I have done The Fourth Peece of Improvement hath respect unto the Plantations of Hops Saffron and Liquorish both in relation to the mystery thereof and profits thereby CHAP. XXXVII Onely treats of Hops Plantations and how Land is improved thereby AS for Hops it is grown to a Nationall commodity But it was not many years since the famous City of Lond. petitioned the Parliament of England against two Anusancies or offensive commodities were likely to come into great use and esteem and that was Newcastle-coal in regard of their stench c. and Hops in regard they would spoyl the tast of drink and endanger the people and for some other reasons I do not well remember but petition they did to suppress them and had the Parliament been no wiser than they we had been in a measure pined and in a greater measure starved which is just answerable to the Principles of those men that now cry down all devices or ingenious discoveries as projects so this day therby stifle choak Improvement yet we see what nationall advantages they have since yeelded and no less will many of the other This Hop plantation would require a large discourse but I shall contract my self to the briefest discovery therof I can possible therefore shall under three or four Heads 1 Shew you the land is best for them and best Sets to plant withall 2 The manner of planting them and husbandring them untill they be fit for sale 3 The profit and advantage that will accrew thereby I shall describe it thus it comes up with severall sprouts like Sparrowgrass runs up climbs on an thing it meets withall bears long stalk hairy and rugged leaves broad like the Vine the flowers hang down by cushers set as it were with scales yellowish called in high Dutch Lupulus in Low Dutch Hopssem and in English Hop It is offensive upon this score hot in the first degree stuffs the head with the smell therefore use it not too much yet the leaves open clense 1 The best land is your richest land and in time you must gain therein lest another reap the benefit of your labour It must be a deep mould that which lyeth near the Rock the Poles cannot be set deep enough to stand firm it would be a mixed earth that is compounded of sand and a little clay but much solid earth a strongish
President of great store of lost Land under puddle hill capable of Improvement An offer made once to have made good the same 2 Advantage of this Enclosure III husbandry discovered along the River Thames both wayes much barren Land near London 109. p. 160. See Mr. Hartlip his legacy page 56. A second sort of Coarser Land the only Land for Plowing The middle sort of Clay strong Land advanceth it self by Tillage The warm lighter Land advanceth most in Corn to the Commonnwealth How to bank Ant-hills most speedily The best way to destroy Rush or coldness in any Pasture Moderate Tillage must needs advance â—and Advance for Plowing and the old Rent the first year after An offer made of making good a Lease after Plowing of old Rent and a great advance in Plowing Stratford upon Avon President Thâ— manner how to Plow such Lâ—nds Mow the Rushes Especiall directions for plowing Experiment of Plowing the second sort of Land and the fruits of it A President of the fruit that came of poor Lands worth but nine shillings an Acre To lay open Furrows clear is very good What Hardness and Harrowing is most advantagious Overâ—plow cryed down and reproved Reasons why but three or four yeares are prescribed for Plowing old Pasture Land neither more nor less Last Crop may yeeld most Corn but worst for the Land To lay down Land upon the Wheat or Rie Stubble is best and the reasons of it The way of Sowing Land to be left after to Grass Dung laid upon the new fresh Turf works wonders When one Load of Manure will go as far as two or three Prov. 12. 11. Prov. 28. 10. Prov. 13. 23. Prov. 11. 16. Prov. 13. 23. Richst â—or â— of Land Destruction of the best Land is by over-plowing Mowing Land a great Impoverishing Moderate Plowing better than unlimited Mowing Plowing left indifferent upon the Richest Lands Divisions of Land advanceth Small Divisions reproved Plowing the onely Cure of VVeeds Plowing the only Cure against Mossiness Rush Coldness Object Against timely Soarding Ans. 2. Plowing some Land must be used as a Medicine â—oâ— as a Calling VVhat Land it is that may Soard as well the first year to as much profit as before A President of Wheat stubble its speed so Soarding Object Ans. A president of fattest Mutton on the newest 〈◊〉 Object Ans. Rotting Sheep in new Pastures well ordered may be rate To prevent Rotting in new Tilled Pastures Separations and raising of Quick-set Hedges a greâ—t advancement Hedg rowes a thing of delight and credit Reasons why Quick-setting thrives no 〈◊〉 Hedg rows a great help for Firing and Timber Not preserving Quick-sets when planted is ruin to good Husbandry Usuall wayes to kill the Rush Flag or Mare'-blab Drayning the most naturall way Much Trenching reproved How to find the matter that â—eed the Rush Flag How to drain Land well where there is no end of Trenching The causes of Moals increasing VVant of a Law for killiâ—g of Moales a great mischief Pot-Tâ—â—p chief Engine in Moal Destruction Destroying the nests destroyes multitudes of them VVater best to destroy Moals Ant-hills Destruction Object Ans. Ant-Hills good to destroy Sheep or Beasts How to bank Ant Hills most speedily Why to lay them lower than the Surface of the Earth Sow-thistle a great annoyance Easiest way to destroy the Sow-thistle Goose Tansey Feâ—rn howâ—o destroy The reason of Fearns dying Easiest way to destroy Broom Excellentest way to destroy Broom Goss Ling and Braking When one load of Soyl doth as much good as two or three An unsailing way of destroying any filth Planting Fruit-trees in hedges is good husbandry Chief piece in Planting all fruits Best Earth discovered How to reap two Harvests An unfailing way to preserve Corn from Blasting The most usuall naturall help A good help to preserve Corn pure To preserve Corn from Fowls and Vermine An unfailing Prevention of Crows Rooks or Daws from Corn. The Reason of the Crows offence taken The fuller Description of the Persian VVheel Improvement of Up-Land several waies President of Plowing Wood-Land Land A Husband-mans old principle Wood-Land Lands Tilled every ten yeares yea some every eight Means or Materials to in-rich Land Liming of Land Object Ans. Presidents for Liming The Land most naturall for Lime The nature of Lime quite contrary to the common opinion How much wil Lime an Acre Marl. Nature of Marl. Signs of good Marl described Slipperâ—ress no infallible sâ—gn A Marling Experiment Some Mucked some Folded some Mâ—râ—ed One no cost at all A double Experiment Marl saddens Land exceedingly Extremes is Marling reproved How to lay down Land to graze after Marling The Prime Principle in Husbandry Land most naturall for Marl. Sand. Of no worth or use at all Sand from the Land-flood are good What Lands are naturall for Sands Pest Sand of all What causeth so much richness in the Sea Sands The Seas fruitfulness by Fish Sea Weeds very good soyl for Land Urine frâ—itful The richness of Snayl Cod. Where the right Snayl is to be got The chief River whereâ—n this Mud lyeth comes from-ward Vxbridge by Cole-brook and is not the Thames as I can yet discover having made a Journy thither since I wrote the aforesaid discourse Mud in Rivers of great use Bacons Naturall History pag. 123. Chalk Chalk mixed most certain Mud. Ingenuity not of such esteem as a base Outlandish fashion Earth covered with any house or baâ—n is rich Pidgeons and Poultry dung little less inferiour Horses well corned make best dung Swines dung most excellent soyl The great account of swines dung The usage of their Swine and the making of the Hogyard How to feed Swin without any cornish meat Raggâ— VVoo's Marrowbone Beef Broaâ—h Sheeps-Dung How with great ease to raise rich dung Horse Dungs Excellency A great mistake in letting soyl be uncovered How to lose none of the least benefit in mucking any Land notwithstanding Land-floods Some lose no Laâ—d flood at all Vrine of mankind usefull for Lands Ashes Soot Best Manure for Gardens Stubbâ—e or Straw Salts effect How much Liming Corn or watering Corn advanceth it Oyl the fruit thereof Leaves of Tâ—eâ—â— Fearn or Rushes will make soyl The most naturall Land to plant with Wood. How to cast our thy Wood-plots for pleasure Method and conâ—usion to thee bring of an equal price and probably be the cheaper How to cast out thy plot into most delightfull divisions Planting Strawberyes is excellent How to get thy seâ—s for planting The quickest growing wood What Sets are best How to plant thy Sets How to make thy Dike to Plant thy Sets in How to plant thy Quick and mould them also Object Ans. 1. Ans. 2. 2. A President of Wood planted that one Acre was worth 60. at 11 years growth What an Acre costs plenting Object Ans. 1. Ans. 2. No Observation of the Moon Eccl. 11. 4 5 6. Weeding most necessary Boggy-Land will bring forth a Plantation of Wood. What one Acre of
for as upon great raines the Rivers or Water-courses in the uplands are not able to contain the Floods fen- neither are the Fen Rivers Sewers or water-courses able to take away those Floods that come out of the higher Countries or uplands aforesaid And as the small brooks first overflow because of the disproportion betwixt those narrow watercourses and the floods that run in them and are unflowed again when or before the great Rivers begin to rise and the Flood of the great Rivers continue longer than the lesser so the Fen Rivers or Water-courses being much lesser proportionable to their great Floods than the little brooks are they can not contain their own water Floods with the Rivers and Floods of the upland Countries too but are forced over the banks into that great Flat or Levell of Fen-land and Meadow on both sides their Water-courses and being there dispersed many miles into a great breadth and length being ever and anon relieved with fresh Land-Floods most part of Winter long continue neither having a great fall nor large â—â—omthy Water-courses into the Sea nor other artificiall Receptacles to receive them cannot so truly nor suddenly run off again but had they Water-courses proportionable either in Number or Greatness to other great Meadows they would most of them drain themselves and return to as perfect Meadow and Pasture as any in England for almost all Land-floods and Rivers that lye on the same side of the Country the Fens lye on from the highest part of the up-lands run into and through the Fens to the Sea as their constant course if the Spring be kindly and moderatly dry the Fen-water runneth and dryeth away apace and many times in February or the entrance of March especially when the winds sit fair that is to drive the waters Sea-ward they are grazeable with great cattell and many times with Sheep too and some part of them are all Winter dry and never drowned and many of those keep as much stock of cattell especially of sheep all Winter as ever I saw any Common or pasture without hay And to conclude this description whereby you may not onely frame out a Model of the Fens but discover the Fecibility if not the only way of Drayning them which ushereth in my second particular which is 2. The discovery of some of those hindrances or rubs that either hinder or infacilitate this work of Fen-drayning and they are either in the Land it self the Commoners or the undertakers thereof The first Hindrance is in the Land 1. In the Land there may be such Mountaines and Rockiness betwixt the place you desire to drain and the Sea or River into which you must draw your drain that it may make the work so chargeable as the profits thereof will not counterpoise 2. Also there may be such a Vein of Earth as is so Moorish or exceeding Sandy upon which you must be forced to plant your Sluces or Water-gates as besides the extraordinary charge of Workmanship may much hazard the continuance of the Work and so with extraordinary charge and great hazard may render the fruits therof below the expences These things are possible yet not usuall The Second Hindrance may be in the People The Commoners and they may and do much hinder it in reproaching of the Work it self as I hinted before and weary the minds and weaken the hands of others that would indeavour it But the greatest hindrance is their unfaithfulness to the Work by their dulness and neglect of raising sufficient summes of monys to carry on the work and raising it so seasonably as may expedite the same for these Works are not to be trifled withall it must be the speedy and powerfull carrying on at once as well as the Artificiall and wise managing of it A little season lost may lose the cost and works of a whole Summer and whilest neighbors are contesting about the quality of their Levies and disputing every mans Right to pay and gathering up their moneys the Works may run further backward in a week than they were brought forward in a month I have seldome known a rude multitude or a confused heady people ever agree in this these works creep forward but run post backward Again the combination of labourers and Poor people may very much prejudice besides their slothfull and sleathy slubbering of it if not exceeding carefully overseen The Third Hinderance may be in the Vndertaker or Drayner And although this may not be such an Essential Prejudice to the Work it self as the rest are because a man would think that he that either for his wages or credit works it should doe his best yet to the common good it may be as destructive as the former And herein and in the former Hindrance as I desire not to discourage any Ingenious Spirits so neither do I desire to fawn upon the most ablest Artist but do hereby affirm that the Undertaker or Artist in this Work may exceedingly Eclipse the Common Good and through a corrupt selfish Spirit may monopolize to his private advantage particular mens Interest and in and under pretence of doing a Common Good may utterly ruin thousand souls Corrupt self or Corruption it self will endeavour this but an Ingenious Spirit scorns perfidiousness yet many an Undertaker may in these respects be an hindrance to the prosperity of Fen-draining if he be upon a publick Work for private I meddle not withall 1. If that he lay not out a good Foundation he either wholly spoils it or at least bungles out a half work and leaves the Cream behind him and it destroyes it self at last 2. If that men shall pick and cull their Lands drayn those that are more fecible and leave out those that are more difficult I say he is an enemy to the Common good And this is a Maxim I shall declare Drain the worst and the best will drain it self and sometimes the lowest Lands may if thoroughly drained prove the best Lands and be the speediest and easiest way to drain the whole 3. If that men drain those Lands wherein they are like to have an interest throughly and those the Commoners have more overly or imbank or secure the one from land-floods and not the other or if he make not such a through drain of all as may go to the bottom and lay it sound at root I am sure he will not attain the End the best fruit and advantage the Lands will yeeld which that it may be accomplished I shall descend to the third Particular The Third Particular to be considered is The Cure or best and speediest way of Reducing drowned Lands unto perfect soundness A Work too great for my shallow parts and scanty leasure And therein because I shall not dare to teach men so many degrees abler than my self I shall onely modestly propose some few Queries the which if any shall answer in lines or practice I shall have my End the Common-wealth will receive more