Author THE way is new my friend thou seem'st to go We should incourage Art But thou must know Thou l't meet With Criticks and back biting foes Bad men the best of Works will still oppose If but what only pleaseth all mens sight Should come abroad no Work should come to light Goood is made better by Community It 's Publique good to quicken industry Thou 'st spent thy time thy Paines with great Expence On Countries Good for love not Recompence Let others read I 'le labour what I can To imitate this Compleat Husbandman A true Friend to thee as thou to all P. W. To Captain W. Blith upon his Improved Improver FEw upon search amongst the multitude Of human race appear who are endu'd With such a noble Genius as by art Can heighten Nature Fewer this impart For 't is an Axiom unto must unknown That that 's the best of good which most is shown Uuless some Patents for the same requite With publiqne recompence their private mite How then ought all to Count this Author rare Who by experience and observant care Knows how to husband grounds to their best use And doth to publique light what 's known produce Who clearly aims in what he doth unfold At Common good still adding new to old He gave us heretofore to understand The Art of floating and of Watering Land Taught us how Fens and Bogs we ought to drain How each one might by fair Enclosure gain How antient Pasture might by tillage mend Till'd ground by Grazing to improvement tend What soyl and compost for each ground is good And what waies further best the growth of Wood. To these this third Edition doth discover The most approved means to husband Claver The art of planting Liquorish descries Of Maddder Woad and Weld for richer dies The Planting Cole-seed Flax and Hemp's declar'd And how the Ploughs expences may be spar'd How of especiall use ground may be made For Gardens and for Orchards is displaid Which this Survey of husbandry discovers At easie Rates but not without endeavours Improveth Land to three or five Degrees Held forth most plain not kept within skies But casts it all in such a curious mould To raise from one to ten yea Twentyfold Lastly the Souldier doth example yield How he should till as well as fight the field How swords should turn to plough-shares when warres cease And what imployment suits with times of peace Thine upon the publique score T. C. To the Husbandman Farmer or Tenant TO you of all others I might spare thit paines you the very practitioners you that trade in Husbandry of some of you I have high things to report both for your industry and activity and though I am confident all men are thirsty enough after profit and increase yet few studiously industrious in this design though some esteem it matter of greatest moment yet you will not all be found patronizers hereof there is such a scandall and prejudice among many of you against new projections that I shall beseech you to take a loving admonition in two or three particulars The first is an Epidemicall disease and little less are the succeeding and it is a great mischief to your selves and the Common-wealth and that is such an immoderate plowing your land some plow far more than they can Til or Manure and others all they have in common though never so much others plowing so oft and low that they draw out the marrow of it and these are the great Improverishers of your gallant old pasture though fit enough to plow might be best advanced thereby with moderation but into both these extremes men are so apt to run so fast that I desire to stop their course a little and shall make bold to tell them that when half or one third part of so much land as many of you Till shall with that very soyl and half the labour and seed saved yeeld you as much corn as all that great quantity scramblingly husbanded that then you are ill husbands which you wil confess if that you wil but grant me that which no man wil deny that one Acre purely husbandryed and what need any be otherwise or any break up more than he is able well to compass will be as good as two or three in many mens ordinary practise but in some of your whole-sale husbandmen that plow all before them four or five Acres will not ballance one purely husbanded then judge so much land preserved from impoverishment so much seed and cost preserved and yet as great increase whether the opposite actors be not enemies to themselves families and Common-wealth The second abuse is want of good tillage wee lose our hopes excedingly by this and herein we must both have respect to season land and corn for good seasons at all times cannot be expected yet of two evills chuse the least I am confident better sometimes lose the land than land seed and all your labour as many do that outslip the season but for prevention begin earlier I am confident though it may admit of some inconveniencies sometimes yet at other times it is out of question but generally both Summer and Winter seed-time carries it away sure it hath these advantages that if it prosper not you may sow it again or if the latter part of seed time at Michaelmas time prove wet you are well having sowed before or the latter part of seed-time in the Spring prove dry as most oft it doth you have prevented that and what is the great danger of growing proud in Winter that is to mee a vertue and if in the Spring it is easily taken down also and if thou fearest weeds I am of opinion that the stronger and thicker any corn is it preserves it self the best from weeds but there is a Medium in all things too thick sowing may be as bad but this ever observe that the earlier thou sowest the thinner thou maiest sow thy winter corn and summer too if the season be good and land dry and sound And secondly to your land you must have respect too Land in good tilth in good heart and sound in a good season will out-cast its very marrow through the Lords blessing expect fruit enough Men much wrong their corn in not giving their Lands sufficient workmanship I am not precise in the number of Plowing nor Harrowing but just so much and no more than preserves the Land from weedes and best brings the land into such a composition that your land mould well I shall not justify the old Proverb here No balkes no corn I say not balkes all corn even cleanly plowing is most commendable and most profitable to some grain more tilage to some less is required yet to none no less than may both cover well and yield good bottome and rooting to the Corn. And thirdly for your Corn some graines require more tillage others less some will better beat a drier season some a wetter some grain more subject to
light and I my self full satisfaction 1. Whether all waters whatsoever the more they increase in quantity the more in weight if so then 2. Whether if all waters biggen the further they run especially in floods whether then all water-works or cuts must not biggen and strengthen also if that a perfect securing from Floods be intended And if so then 3. Whether all Water-courses that are made for drains must not widen biggen and strengthen proportionable both to the Land-floods that come out of the upper Countries as also proportionable to the waters or downfalls that come from Heaven and fall upon the said Lands And so require answerable Receptacles if so then 4. Whether or what is the proportion or how may a man know the gage thereof and so how to make every course equall to the water it must carry 5. Where the greatest difficulty lies in drayning the Fens whether in drayning the Fens from their own naturall waters and moisture or in preserving them from the Land-floods that come from the high Lands If the great difficulty be to preserve them from the Land-floods of other Lands as to me seems probable then whether it would not be more really advantagious to a perfect draining to take off the Land-floods at or before their entrance into the Fens and so carry them along the Fen-side under the up-lands and not suffer them to come into the middle of the Fen as long as it may be kept off untill you come to strike with one straight course into the out-let of the Sea or River or within some few miles thereof And whether this would not be the likeliest certain meanes to prevent the just offencâ—â—he Commoner and Country seemed to take in the last undertaking who una voce cry out that the Undertakers secured their own by banks and preserved them from the Land-floods and drowned all the Commoners side as much as ever and that by every considerable Flood And if this be granted then I dare conclude the Fen will drain it self with a small course and with greater speed and more certainty as well as more substantially And so I shall onely move this further and so refrain 6. Whether if any of the aforesaid particulars be affirmed then must not of necessity all the Out-lets or Mouths of all the Master-work and Sluces and Water-gates be widened and made proportionable to your higher courses lest that the water receive a check thereby either to force your Sluces or give a recoil to the waters into the Fen again I mean proportionable as well in greatness of the fall as to the breâ—dth and depth of the water-course I shall onely now desire to know whether when the Master-drains are made substantially deep it will not be â—o most advantage to divide the lands into lesser divisions by small draines than to cast them out into greater proportions yet I shall not prescribe so small as some do but into the most convenientest divisions may be for the compleat draining And as to Sluces Water-gates Locks c. I shall say little because they are under the command of Rule and Truth of Workmanship and a good experienced Millwright or Engineer is well able to regulate them to as much Advantage for close shutting and suitable opening to the incomming of the Tide or out-going of the Floods as the variousness of opportunities will require which I forbear because they cannot easily be described without figures And as to the severall Tooles to be used in the working of these Water-courses they are common and most of them in common use upon the Fens except a good water-levell which I have at large described in the tenth Chapter which is most essentially necessary for the casting or laying out of all the Works therof and a Trenching Plough to cut out the first Works and the Turfing Spade all largely described in the next Chapter I shall onely speak a word or two to the Improvement of some particular parcels of Fen-lands which in themselves are drainable and without the least dependauce upon the general draining although I will not say but such Land would more easily be drained in the generall than it will be done of it self yet seriously pondering all things in one even ballance there may be little difference and that upon this account if it be done as a member of the General then it must contribute to the generall charge and share in the generall breaches or miscarriage and in all paaticulars stand and fall therewith Also then it is subject to the same hazard as the generall is of prejudice by reason of the differences that may arise betwixt the Owners Proprietors Commoners Undertakers or whosoever which may be very many and so great as may tend to the ruin of the whole which without dependance thereupon it will not be And I am confident some very considerable parcels of Lands lie so convenient and so fecible unto the Work that they may be done most easily and others lye more difficultly and will be done more chargeably All which I shall hold forth under these two descriptions 1. Are all Lands that lye somewhat higher of themselves and are never drowned unless it be by some extraordinary Inundation of themselves these are most easily recovered of themselves at a little more charge than any common Lands are inclosed and that by one good substantiall Dike well turfed or sodded as the Fen-men call it on the outside round about the same and well rammed and beaten together it need neither be very broad nor high the height and weight of the water offending will discover that unto you nor indeed cost any more than the charge of a good quick Dike which every good Husband bestowes upon a new division and I dare say there are many thousands of Acres of Lands in many parts of the Fens of this nature 2. The Second is the more difficult and yet very fecible also and that is certain Creeks or corners of Land â—â—unning into the up-lands and upon the out-skirs of the Fens and many out-borders that are onely anoyed with their own and the swellfng of the naturall Fen-waters and are cleer from any Land-floods or up-land waters running through them and have one or two sides firm and the securing of one or two sides more will secure the whole These are easily drainable without dependance upon the draining of the whole Fen and that by a more substantiall imbanking than the former to secure it self from the great waters of all other Fens and then there will onely rest to resolve how to drain it self to which I shall onely say that having well provided against the waters of bordering Fens find out the lowest part of all thy Lands and thither draw a good substantial Master-drain through all thy Lands and there plant a water-Engine which may either be wrought by the wind or by the strength of horse yea possibly by the strength of two or three men
mouthes of such Madcaps in each Extreme and make good my Proposition I will begin and try whether I can hold out Enclosure without any Depopulation or the lest prejudice and then proceed to a full answer to the rest And secondly that your Arable or Common Field Lands or common Heathes Moores or Forrests may be highly Advanced that is out of question I suppose denyed scarce by any that have had seven years Experience of the Disproportion betwixt the profits of one Lordship in Common and the next adjoyning to it Inclosed The one worth three hundred pounds in Common the other near a thousand in Pasture Now here lyeth the Trick indeed to make this Improvement and neither Prejudice Poor nor Minister Labourer nor Farmer Tenant nor Landlord One or Other that hath any proper Right of interest therein and not Depopulate For the holding forth of which I will Demonstrate such a Method or way of Enclosure without Depopulation as all men in particular shall have a Proportionable Advance thereby and the Common Wealth a double or Treble and Tillage advanced also and so the one Extreme prevented and no man hindred all which shall admit of no other Inconvenience than this viz. The prevention in great measure of Idleness Oppression 't is true it will remove or take away it may be a Shepheard or a Boy or Girl from keeping Cattell who are more fit for School or Trade and put the Shepheard to the Spade or it may be prevent some great Oppressor of the Commons that drives off all poor Commoners off their Commons by his great Flocks and Heards whom this Project may drive off his Sheep walkes who lives just upon the Common side and eates out the Poor and others that live more remote And also happily prevent a Rot especially when t is Soarded which usually is once in four or five years in most part of this Nation which destroyes all before it and consumeth the Care and Paines of the Oppressor too and others together of all other yeares profit at once And possibly may for a little season bring down the price of Sheep Cattell and some other things by reason of plenty of Sheep so suddainly destroyed being of so ill a name to a low rate Which were it not for that Rotting Deluge their incrâ—ase would be beyond Arithmeticall Demonstration But for a long seasoâ— afterwards raiseth them to a double Rate immediately agâ—in And possibly it may be as an Engine to facilitate moâ—st parts of Husbandry and cause a great deal of work to be done with fewer hands and yet before the Discourse be ended I 'll find all sorts work enough to all mens Advantages whatsoever and these are the Inconveniences of Inclosure and good Husbandry others I know none the conveniences follow also if any more or greater shall be proposed I shall indeavour to Answer them in the Sequell CHAP. XII Sheweth the Lands capable of Enclosure and the Method of â—t how it Advanceth the Publick Weal and all particular Interests ANd to this end consider that all Lands capable of Enclosure are either Common Fields and Arable Lands Mens proper Right and Inheritance or else Common Pasturing upon Heaths Moor Marshs or Forrests Lands For the Enclosure of your common field Arable Land I lay down this Direction All Interests to be provided for which I conceive may be reduced to these four 1. First either Lord of the soyl or Landlord or 2. Secondly the Minister to the People or else 3. Thirdly the Freeholder Farmer or Tenant or lastly and 4. Fourthly the Poor Labourer or Cottier All which having some Interests more or less shall be seriously considered of Therefore I begin with the last the Poor Cottier or day Labourer and to provide for him because he hath ever been oppressed if any and last or least provided for And look what right or Interest he hath in Common I 'll first allot out his proportion into severall with the better rather than with the worse a Proportion out of every mans Inheritauce and so much or so many Cattell as he may keep in Common he shall keep in Pasture or rather more at as easie a rate as they pay for it in Common for their lives that now live upon it and ever after at an under Value and so I cannot possibly conceive that he hath any cause to be offended And for the Labourer you shall see how I shall provide for him too before I have done besides the allotment of his Proportion as to the Cottier or to what Right soever he hath of due or Custome Then for the Minister in the next place because he hath seemed to be the Opposer of it most usually And truly so he had good reason as the state of things formerly stood with him For though I believe that Tithes are neither consonant to a Gospell Minister the List of which dispute becomes me not nor I intend not to enter in nor yet Conducing to a sweet Compliance with his people Yet I also say that should a Minister either have accepted the peoples benevolence of our ordinary English Parishes for his pay Or have stood to the Courtesie of the Lord or Freeholder what he shonld have had upon the Inclosure I fear for the one it would have been too little for a Ministers Maintenance and for the other he might go barefoot and his Family a begging for what the Common people would Contribute to his Subsistence And therefore would have him to have his Proportion next and a very substantiall Livelihood allotted out of the Lands inclosed untill the State shall settle a more better or more suitable way of Maintenance for him If there be either a Competent number of people for him to preach unto or Competency of Land to raise it from in every Parish or else two or more Parishes that joyn conveniently to be laid together And according to what his Right or Proportion if he have it in way of Tithing to be inclosed or cast into pasture for him by himself with as much Conveniency for his dwelling as may be And where either Inclosure cannot be agreed upon or made as possibly in some parts it may not Consist with all mens advantages I conceive there may be an agreement made for the allotment of the Ministers proportion to be cast into Pasture so that were his Tenth Enclosed it would be so gallant a maintenance for him and contentfull to all Parties that it would remove all troubles or occasion of Confusion and Increase Love and Unity which Tithings have ever occasioned Divisions and Contentions Which either he may imploy his Wife and Family upon part thereof for necessary Maintenance And set with much more ease the rest to free his Family from Care and trouble And so receive his pay every half year without the least Distraction I would have him to have such a large Allotment and Proportion as might inable
ever the Earlier it is sowed the better is the Crop like to prove in my opinion because these Graines of Wheat or Rie c. require the land to be in better Tillage than this can be Therefore help it what you can possibly by seasonable and early sowing that it may have as much Summer as may be and by all means Harrow in your Corn after it is Plowed For this is more certain to produce a good Crop And secondly leaves the Ground even smooth to Graze yet forget not that your Land be left High and Round the Colder in nature the Higheâ— and Rounder as aforesaid each Furrow be Scoured up as cleanly as you can possibly These simple particulars really Observed and Practised will bring the Land to that condition that I shall make good what I formerly promised and to this particular I shall say no more for present onely this may be applied to any of this second sort of Land be it of what Mixture or Composition soever that is Banky Mossy Cold and Rushy and will have a proportionable effect promised But if possibly you could run over a good part of this Land with Dung after you have plowed it before you sow your last Crop or so much as you could it would produce a double advantage of the cost bestowed towards the Soarding of it And if after you have Reaped your last Crop you could then run it over again with any quantity of Muck or Compast it might so nourish your Land and that for many years after possibly it might be near as good again upon the old Soarding as it was before for you would wonder how much good one Load of Manure doth upon the Land so Tender wrought and Mixed beyond what two or three Load will do on old Soard or old Pasture so Rough and Filthy nothing will make you to beleeve this but your own experience Let me prevail herein good Reader to make a tryall it will be to thy benefit be not an Enemy to Tillage nor raising Corn to Poor and Common-wealth and If thou expect better Satisfaction take it from divine evidence and from the Conclusion of him that spake by Inspiration as well as from natural Experience He that tilleth his Land shall be satisfied with Bread and shall have plenty Much food in Tillage for the Poor And if this satisfie not carry this one Text if thou canst remember no more along with thee into thy Pastures when thon art in thy greatest Glory He that withdraweth Corn the people shall curse him and a blessing upon his bead that selleth it But he must get it first and so we ought upon that Land as will most freely yeeld it which I conceive is a main end wherefore Thou and Thy Land was first created Be not envious to thine own good nor wilfull to thine own profit I am much abashed to use so many words to press so plain Simple Principles thoughtâ— to be well known to all and possibly they may be better than to my self but truly the little Practise of them and the Scorn men carry in their Breasts to learn and that Thirstiness in me after the Common good occasions all this Rudeness to see thousands of Opportunities so neglected makes me amaze CHAP. XVI ANd first for your richest sorts of Land conceived as good as Art and Nature can make them yet consider the insuing Discourse may hold out some Improvement to be made out of the same As for your best Land of all That by Husbandry Drayning Separating cleering Plowing Soyling or some sort of husbandry or other was brought to this perfection it was not in this condition naturally nor originally from the beginning much whereof may be now clear from Rushes Mossiness Sow Thistle Nettles Weeds and Hemlocks and all other pelf and onely bring forth pure Grass both thick and rich this possibly may admit of little Improvement upon it self but unto the Owner and Common-wealth this may yeeld above double profit for some yeares by moderate Plowing and afterward return so soon to his naturall fruitfulness as that it shall yeeld his old Grazing Rent the first year and so continue But this Land being of all other the most subject to Abuse and greater prejudice than any other Land whatsoever And I am confident unless the Presidented directions contained in the fourteenth and fifteenth Chapter be most punctually observed it may suffer loss therefore I must provoke no man to take the pursuance of them here unless any who is of such a publique spirit as rather desires the Publique than his own private Advancement And for some other men when they find so great profit come in upon them by this or any other means they out of a thirsty desire of gain will Over-do Over-plow and so destroy their Land for it is not Plowing simply as aforesaid that impoverisheth Land but too oft Plowing and look you where you will generally throughout this Nation and you will find where any good Pasture is destroyed hereby they have Plowed Six Seven and some Nine Ten and some Twelve Crops together which I approve so well as I say it is a Losing Extreme And I wish it were Felony so to abuse a mans Self Lands Posterity and Common-Wealth Also which Lands may be so many yeares before they come to a perfect Soard again as may lose as much in abatement of Rent before it come up to the old Rent as they got in the advance Rent by Plowing And yet if I affirm that Mowing Land without Limitaion is as impoverishing unto it as Plowing Land with Moderation especially Upland Pasture I should not much mistake I am a greater Eâ—emy to the one without Limit than to the other with Moderaion and yet tthe one is cryed down by all and the other by few or none Therefore my advise shall be to Plow thy Land three four or five Crops if thy affections stand that way and lookest at greatest profit Sowing it first with Hemp Oad Coal or Rape-seed Madder Licorish or Sow such rich Commodity that will so well pay for it or something else that better agrees with the rankness of so gallant Land which for divers of the first years will be so rank that Corn will fall Flat and Dwindle or Rot and neither be kindly in quality nor rise to the strike in quantity as it will upon those Lands after divers Crops taken or upon leaner Land and then after with Corn the last yeares And if thou wilt but lay it down round even upon the Wheat Rye or Meslin Stubble Sowed in his proper Season observing some other few Directions handled more at large in the aforesayd Chapters thou shalt not need to fear thy Lands Impoverishing or abating Rent It will produce so gallant and sweet a Turf as will feed as well and faster than it did before if not better For my own part I do affirm That had
effect to work strange things Of all which my self having not made full Experience can find no more Advantage the Chalk or Lime in substance or so much as is added of therein than just so much as is added to the Corn either of the Soyl or Fatness of either of the Waters and no more For having made a thorough triall thereof found no otherwise nor nothing of that great Advantage promised But let not me prejudice any Ingenious trialls of the same others may find more possibly I might miss in the manner of my application search it out throughly I beseech you As for Oyl I am confident it is of a very Inriching nature to Land or Corn but whether the Cost required will be requited I leave to Experience for I have not forgotten the Oyling-Corn Patentee that great design to so little purpose who drew so many Scholars after him but I had the happiness to escape him and his Patent too though some paid dear for it The Leave of Trees laid together or cast into some High-way or Water-flows or mingled with other Soyles will make very good Compost also Also Fearn or Rushes Thistles or any coarse straw or Trash whatever flung or cast into the Fothering-yards among your Cribs under your Cattell will be both good Litter to lay your Cattell dry and warm and will make very good soyl as all good husbands know Some more particulars may be spoke too and some further directions given but I 'll forbear â—xperiencing these will work out more discoveries So much for this Fifth Piece The Sixt Parcell or Pice which is a new Erection or Plantation of divers sorts of Wood and Timber in such a way as shall raise as much in twenty yeares growth as usually and naturally groweth in forty or fisâ—ie years whereby the Draynes or Ruins of Wood in this Nation may be gallantly repaired and severall Groves or Plumps of Trees may be Erected about any Manour House or Place for delight and pleasure And in such severall formes as men desire and as much Wood for quantity raised in one Acre as is usually in three four or five Acres of our usuall Copices or Spring Woods in most parts of this Nation As also how to thicken those Spring-woods that grow so thinne as usually most doe whereby they might be made as thick again and yet not hinder the growth thereof CHAP. XXIV Speakes of the nature of the Land and sheweth the severall sorts of Wood and how to plot out the same to most delight TO which purpose let all men use their utmost endeavours and skill to lay their Woods and Coppices or Spring of Woods as dry as possibly they can for Wet and Coldness is as prejudiciall and offensive to the fruitfulness thereof as it is to Corn or Grass or any Fruit-Trees whether Apples Peares Plums Cherries c. All which though every man indeavours little herein and though to their ancient Spring-Woods little opportunity can be gained yet what can be gained hereto prosecute it as of great Advantage And for a new Erection of Wâ—od where never any grew and raising of a new Plantation which is one of my main designs a Piece so little practised which before I have fully ended you will wonder it should have been so much neglected being so feacible Therefore when thou hast designed a Piece or Plot of ground thereto which should be dry sound and pretty hearty thou needest not much matter what nature of Land it be so that thou canst but get two Spade-graft or one and an half of good Earth before thou either come to the strong Clay or Land yea though it have some Gravell or Stones be it but well mixed with good Earth it may do well yea best of all because of hollowness and lightness of it though it should be very boggy Land yet if it have any richness of nature or heart in it thou shalt find a marveilous suitableness therein to make a very good Improvement this way yet the most natural Land hereto in the Experiences I have made or seen is your warm open gravelly sound Land the richer the better as aforesaid When thou wouldest plot out thy Land thou designest to plant which thou mayst cast out if thou aim at thy delight and pleasure onely either in t a square consisting of four Equall sides or eâ—se into a Triangle having but three equall sides or else into a long square which hath two equall sides longer and two equall sides shorter or an Ovall Capacity or else into a Circular plot either as thy phantasie leads thee or if thou mindest onely thy profit and intendest onely to raise Wood for thy use increase and the Countries service it matters not into what form thou cast it into how ever seeing the first is as easie no more chargeable to cast or lot out thy Wood into an Artificial uniformable plot as to do it rudely or confusedly I rather advice it but press it not no further than as to the Gallantary and delightfulness of it or thy spirit thereto wherein may be as much pleasure Delight and Recreation as in your curious Gardens Orchards Walks and Bowers especially being planted about a Mannor House or dwelling place for warmth in Winter shaddow Coolness in the summer for which Advantages many of the nobles Gentry to this Nation would give great sums to purchase Which herby may be obtained at an easier rate Therefore having cast thy Land into any of the plots aforesaid except the Circular which I conceive of least suitableness of all to this work then suppose it be ten twenty or thirty Acres I suppose less if thou cast it into a Square or Triangle or Ovall way then having found the midle of it thou mayst if thou please cast out a Circular round Plot or Ovall containing either a ninth part or a seaventeenth part or but a fifth part and that Incompass in with a little Ditch well quieksetted with thorn and here and there an Ash Oak Elm or Witchazell reserving a Grass-plot to walk round about of fifteen or eighteen Foot wide and then equally divide the rest into so many parts as thou intendest severall falls therein every Division seperate with a walk or Grass-Plot betwixt them containing fifteen or eighteen Foot wideness which will serve as a Cart-way or Passage to fetch out thy Wood at every fall as well as for walks for thy recreation because in this manner of Planting thou canst not Cart along thy Wood as thou dost along thy usâ—all spring Woods but onely along thy Borders which when thou hast so divied all by Ditches which make thy Divisions thou may if thou pleasest to cast thy Banks outward and set thy Hedge inward Plant the Banks with Strawberies which will delight themselves herein grow fruitfully either on the Sun or shady sides Now when thou hast plotted out thy ground prepare for Planting
appears by the naturall growth of it in all Countries but for artificial planting I should advise to a middle mixed Land yea though it be but barren it thrives excellently upon as barren Lands as any are in England the coldest stiffest Clay is worst for all sorts of Woods your open loose Lands is best for any Woods or Fruits and the Oak takes not pleasure in your richest soils of all but I question not the wel prospering of it there two may be the cause why so little of it is found upon your richest Lands may be because the Land may or is put to a more profitable use for this I must needs acknowledge that in many parts where Land is rich and dear or lyeth near great Towns and letteth at great prizes the wood being in danger of stifling and spoiling by Wood-stealers the Land may turn to greater profit yet however where Land is good I should advise to some wood though planted here there a tree in hedg-rows where they may not prejudice the grass or shade the ground it wil be not onely an improvement in good measure of the Land by adding to the incom the fruit thereof as well as of the grass but an honor delight unto your self and Posterity The Oak-mast maketh fat fast flesh and long lasting Bacon and will feed Deer Sheep and Poultry exceeding well and profitably I have read of one Oak in Westphalia from the foot to the nearest bough one hundred thirty foot and twelve foot thick and of another ten yards thick which may possibly be but I am sure profit and honour sufficient will attend an ingenious plantation of any sorts of Wood. This is most renowned for Shipping or any the strongest and most enduring works or buildings or for the most curious Wainscot or indeed for any use whatever I shall be brief in all the rest because that much that I have said in the planting of this may be applied to the rest the Barque is of as great worth as of need and use The Beech is also a mast-tree and very usefull and profitable both in the Body Branches and fruit thereof The Body is very good Timber for the Joyners use and for the Husbandman for Axol-trees and for much Building and the bough for Firing and the Fruit for feeding Hogs and Deer and I know not whether for Poultry or Sheep but it makes meat sweet and delicate light of digestion but not so long lasting as Peas or Acorns It delights most in your warm Land it growes well upon gravelly Land and Lands very stony and in the Chiltern Countries and sandy ground and balks not the barrennest Land likes well and better the hill and mountains than the plain The Barque thereof is usefull for the floats of fishing-nets and pantofels for Winter and if you spoyl them of their Barque they die This wood groweth somewhat quicker than the Oak and is more inclined to some Countries than to others especially your wood-land parts The Elm groweth easily it is all heart if it be fallen in his season which is when the sap is fully and clearly down in the root betwixt November and February it takes great delight in ditch-banks and dry places they will grow thickest of any wood whatever and prosper and as I conceive the most advantagious planting them is in hedg-rows or in little Plumbs of themselves As for the Elm-seed I can say but little because I never made experience thereof onely it is affirmed that there is a male and a female of the Elm and that the male Elm beareth seeed and not the female which if it do then the seed when it is ripe may be sowed as other seeds are upon a bed by themselves and fine mould sifted and cast upon them and if they be dry they as other seeds must be watered and so sowed in little rows that a little trench be betwixt row and row that they may not root one into and upon another but so as that they may be taken up again with more ease to remove and transplant where you please You may get Sets of the very roots which sprout forth of it and set them and they wil grow and very many affirm that any Elm or a very chip when the sap is firm proud will grow unto a Set. But this I had from a Gentleman of credit as a speedy unfailing to raise Elm-sets or Plants which is dig round about a well-grown Elm a foot or more from the body unto many or most of the Master-roots and cleanse away all the earth and then cut the root almost quite through with an ax and so serve most of the roots and if you cut some full through you may and forth of both those ends of the root you cut or divide in sunder will come forth gallant sprouts or plants which you must take off with a little part of the root or a little chip thereof and plant it and it will assuredly grow to a good Tree The use and worth of the Elm is little inferiour to the former it is of absolute and singular use especially for water-works good for building where it may ly constantly dry or constantly wet but sometimes dry and sometimes wet it will not long endure It makes excellent plank and good board the best wood in England for Wheelwrights Nathes or Hubs for wheels and good for felly timber also In your second plantation or removall set them in very good order and be carefull of preserving them as a garden from shaking with wind or cattel or from biting or rubbing by all means Some write that in your second removall you may do best to tie some knots of some of the string or twist them like a garland and then set them and tread the mold down about the roots first annointed with Bullocks dung but my self having made thereof no experience cannot press it all I say is a small matter wil make out the experierce which I encourage to The Elm groweth to great worth hinders little ground delights in sound warm Land dry sandy gravelly or mixed Lands but it must have good store of mold by all means it doth not delight in cold moist clays nor spewing weeping Land One Acrs length with 1. or 2. rows of Elms upon a ditch bank at their full growth may be worth 20. or 30l it runneth up generally to the greatest height and length of any Wood in England The Ash is also a gallaut quick-thriving Wood but it takes not so much pleasure in a hard barren mountainous Land as the Oak or Beech do It will grow in good Land and in Land of any nature or temperature almost what 's ever it will thrive reasonable well upon a Boggy ground so the same be deep Trenched to the bottom and laid dry and sound It delights it self in dry sound Land and will grow very fast if it like the Land faster than any
fortune without prejudice or dishonour may contrive to himself five hundred pounds per annum Himself exceedingly wants such a discovery or else wants the reasonable capacity he speaks of for sure the fortune he speaks of he cannot want being a man of so vast a mind large understanding and great experienee unless his experiences have eaten away the rest which to me seems unprobable unless they be to be found visible These things are gallant in contemplation but more sadly experimented which you will hardly find by sea or land nor any other place but in Mr. Speeds chamber I beleeve He tels us by his fourth Item that with less than fifty pounds stock visible a man may advance a thousand pounds per annum but I fear either the invisible must be ten thousand pounds or else his thousand pound will drop short by nine hundred and eighty and if you grant him credence or that there were a possibility in him ever to affect it why should any man so much abuse himself as to make use of his following Item which is two hundred pounds stock in three yeares to raise four hundred pounds and in three more double the four hundred pounds c. The which he affirms but in probability and yet the other upon certainty but that of probability may be and is most evidently experimented was by may thousands before Mr. Speed was born but why any man should lay out two hundred pounds when with fifty pounds he may raise a hundred and sixty times as much therewith I wonder far greater than those he holds forth in points of Husbandry as to advance land two hundred fold from five shillings to fifty pounds per annum c. and many more in all which I shall say no more but refer thee to his Book and his personall Discoveries for I must and will lay him down the Gantlet For there is enough to advance ths Common-wealth if not to choak it for many times when men are brought extreme low either by sickness or penury and restored as this Common-wealth is suddenly to plenty or a good stomach surfe it and undoe themselves suddenlier with plenty than by a sparer dyet or a more moderate condition and so I fear may this Nation if they embrace so high discoveries too hastily yet embrace them I pray but with sobriety and remember him also that ran mad upon the beholding of his great Treasure for such variety of Extraordinaries may make men wild and run from one to another not knowing where to close or stay and the gazing after these Princely Incomes if they look after it till effected may make them look their eyes out also but enough hereof Yet let me lament the sad condition of our Times and I fear the neglect of our Government too for to very many members thereof if not to all he hath given his Bookes whose fault with humble submission it is that so great discoveries should still be clouded and yet not put in practice and the Common-wealth thus bleeding while either by a Patent or rather and that I am sure for the value of one or two dayes pay at most of a common Clerk in some Offices would effect it for truly the man is very conscionable and desires not a full condition but chuseth a very mean one and wil accept of too little in all conscience for his discoveries I know to whom hee made many of them and would have done all the rest for less than twenty shillings if the mans patience would have received them but most like he not being able to bear them neglected the embracing of thē And whether I have and shall speak forth any of the things he mean I will not be peremptory but beleeve I haue and shall most of them if opportunity last but shall never endeavour to hold them forth in that Luciferous yet watery lustre lest it blind my Reader but truly and nakedly to discover them their nature and use with that reall and feacible advantage may be made thereof which will satisfie a sober spirit and if by chance I make a discovery of what is concealed much good may it doe the Common-wealth for I shall reap the fruit of my design An opportunity to discover publique Advantages And whosoever desires cordially to be informed of Mr. Speed may from Mr. Samuel Hartlib dwelling against Charing-Cross who can give fuller and larger description both of the man and his abilities having expressed him self so far a Gentleman of such charity towards him as he hath maintained him divers monoths together while he was inventing some of these his discoveries as I was informed from a very knowing Information And now to the six Peeces of Improvement contained in the ensuing discourse held forth under these Heads 1 By sowing the Trefoyl or Claver and St. Foyne and the advantages hereby 2 By facilitating the great charge and burthen of the Plough with the figures of them 3 The planting of Weld Woad and Madder three great dying commodities 4 The planting of hops Safforn and Liquorish and the profits thereof 5 The planting of Rape Cole see◠Hemp and Flax and their Increase 6 The Improvements that may be made by some Orchard and Garden fruits CHAP. XXVI Contains the best way of planting Trefoyle or great Claver Grass which is the highest advantage our English Lands will produce And herein I will discover the best seed and the best means to gain it how to sow and husbandry it for food and seed with the most suitable land thereto and the profit that may accrew thereby and for brevity sake shall speak little to what other publique spirits have discovered but enlarge a little from later experience in relation to our English Lands and Husbandry THere are so many sorts of Claver as would fill a volume I shall onely speak of the great Claver or Trefoyl we fetch from Flaunders called by Clusius Trifolliummajus tertium which bares the great red Honysuckle whose leaf and branches far exceeds our naturall Meadow Claver it bears a very small seed as Mustard seed not so round but longer like a Bean the best is of a greenish yellow colour some a little reddish but the black I fear will not doe well The choice whereof is the onely peece in the whole work Your Dutch Holland or Low Country Seed or from the lower parts of Germany is very much of it very hazardous that comes over hither but being well chose there the tansporting of it by sea is no considerable prejudice unto it but much that is sold in the Seed-mens shops in London was either corrupted by the Dutch before it came thence or else parched by over-drying or else by the Shop-keepers either mingling old and new or keeping it another year and then selling it for new I my self within this four year sowed divers Acres with seed bought in London which cost me about two shilllings a pound and lost it all
Peece of improvement hath respect unto the Plantations of hops and Liquorish both in relation to the Mystery thereof and profits thereby Chap. XXXVII Treates of Hops plantation and how Land is Improved thereby ibid. How a hop-yard should stand 139. One of the main things in the Hop-yard is raising the hils 140. The profits may be made of them 145. Chap. XXXVIII Treats of the mystery of Saffron and the way of Planting it 148. How to set Saffron ibid. How to pick it pag 149. How to dry it ibid. Chaap XXXIX Treates of the plantation of Liquorish at large 150. The best land for it ibid. How to set your plants 151. The time of planting it 152. The advantage thereof ibid. The fifth Peece contains the 40. 41 42. Chap. And treateth of the Art of Planting of Rape Cole-seed Hemp and Flax with the severall advantages that may be made of each Chap. XL. Containeth onely the discovery of Rape and Cole-seeds Husbandry 253. The best seed ibid. The time of sowing it ibid. VVhen to cut it ibid. How to use it ibid. Chap. XLI Shewes how good a publique commodity hemp is with the manner of planting 255. How to know the best hemp-seed 259. The time of sowing it ibid. The time of getting it ibid. The best land for hemp 260. Chap. XLIII Treateth onely of the husbandring Flax so as to make it come up to as much of the Improvement as wee can 261. How to raise the best Flax. pag. 263. The best Flaxseed ibid. The season for sowing it ibid. The manner of watering it 264. The sixt and last Peece containeth 2 Chapters And discovereth what great advantage may be made upon our lands by a plantation of some Orchard Fruits and some Garden commodities Chap. XLII Treats how our Lands may be advanced by planting them with Orchard fruits 265. Chap. XLIV Doth contain a brief discourse of some choice and more generall Garden fruits intended to have been spoen to more largely 271. FINIS Excellency Necessity Antiquity Gen. 4. 2. Gen 9. 16. â— Chr. 26. 11. Prov. 6. 6. Prov. 15. 19. Prov. 20. 30. Prov. 22. 21. Prov. 12. 20. Prov. 11. 26 Prov. 21. 5 Causes of Barrennesse 1 Cause of Barrenness is ignorance occasioning Prejudice Prov. 4. 15. Prov. 36. 13. 2. Cause is Improvidence and a slavish custome 3. Cause is want of punishment of Idleness and want of Stock to set the poor on work A Crying sin Drunkenness A generall cause of Barrenness Tilling Rockiness Mountainous Improvidence laying down all Lands How to lay down warm Land How cold Land Standing water in winter Mole hils Ob. Ans. Bogginess Constant resting of the water on that Land 1 Head 2 Head Only improve upon great advantage Under great Rivers will be the best Land And under lesser the greater quantities and greatest Improvement Setting water on Pooles or Lakes not so excellent In what Cases to cover land by Water Land sad and moist worst to Improve by watering Land found dry and warm the best Boggy Lands good for watering How to begin the first piece of watering How to make the drayning Trench Shewes how the water is fruitfull How to make the Drayning Trench The best floating season Upoâ— moist Land Upâ—n warm Land A double Advantage of having a water course cut out President of one year cuâ—ting but five or six and the next twenty four President of sandy Land Mr. Plats President President of Boggy Lands To much Trenching is madness There are two sorts of Trenching Manner of making the floating Trench A shallow Trench doth certain hurt and uncertain good How to prevent heaping Earth and in evening the ground How to Level Land Plowing to Levell Spade to help Levelling The speediest Soarding of Land How to make thy Drayn to drain a Bog to purpose Where water lyeth in Rushy Land The matter that feeds the Bog where that lyeth Every Bog hath most certainly a living Spring within it Shewing how every Drayn must â—e carried up from the lowest levell Shallow Trench reprehended The most sure way to destroy a Bog The prejudice by crooks and angles in water courses How to make Draynes without any prejudice to any sheep or bâ—ast The best way of preventing danger to Cattell in Drayning Fens and Marshes recoâ—ery Floring best destroyes a Beg. The probable occasion or first cause of Bogginess Ob. These are but pretences Ans. 1. Watering breeds the Rush. Ans. Especiall season for watering Land Iob 8. 12. Ans. 2. A sign when Land begins to fatten Obj. Many have done great things herein and alway to no purpose Mountebanck Engineers projections Mysterious Engines repâ—â—â—ved Object Answ. Object Answ. Marsh Lands The first Fendrayne's or Levellers highly to be honoured Invention far harder than an Addition to it Cutting water-courses strait no small aâ—vantage Many thousands of acres recoverable wiâ—h little charge to manifold advantage Some Mils destroy more than they are worth To prevent corrupting land by a Mildam as much as may be What Fen-Drayning is not What perfect Drayning is indeed How to know when Land is firmly Drayned The just Form or Modell of the Fen-lands How the Commoner is a hindrance to Fen-drayning How Undertakers may be a prejudice to the work Queries in Fen-drayning Reasons why the land floods would be best taken oâ—â— on the outside the Fen. Some particular â—ands may be drayned of themselves though the generall be not All such-Lands are most feciblâ— to be drayned Water Engins helpfull in 〈◊〉 These more difficult and yet fecible A new World may best admit of new Husbandry Denshiâ—ing Fen lands very usefull Denshiring lands reproved in the West Burning Land extolled in the North. Lands drowned by the Sea A Good Overseer worth Gold Tooles belonging to floating and Trenching to make the work more easie and less châ—rgable A good Line A Water-Levell Sir Edward Peto his Level The manner and form of a true and the speediest Level that I can devise Who are the makers of it The Trenching Plough Turving Spade The paring Spade The use of the Paring Spade 1 Extreme 2 Extreme Enclosure held forth without Depopulation The grandest evill of a just and equall Inclosure prevents Idleness and Oppression onely Enclosure prevents the Rot of sheep exceedingly Inclosure may occasion more work done at an easier charge Lands capable of enclosure Cottier provided for Labourer provided for Minister provided for Tithes not Gospell wayes maintenance 1. Tit. 8. Depopulation reproved Impropiations to be thought of Free-holder Lord of the Soyl or Landlord How Inclosure shall not prejudice the increase of Corn or food Four arguments to prove the advantage by Enclosure and that more Corn may be raised being Inclosed than Common One Acre brings forth as much Corn as three Tillage great profit Onely Right in Commons not Vsurpers I speak to At the first Enclosing of any Common how to cast out Land to the greatest Advance Tow Advantages of this Enclosure Cavils against Improvement in Common A
President of great store of lost Land under puddle hill capable of Improvement An offer made once to have made good the same 2 Advantage of this Enclosure III husbandry discovered along the River Thames both wayes much barren Land near London 109. p. 160. See Mr. Hartlip his legacy page 56. A second sort of Coarser Land the only Land for Plowing The middle sort of Clay strong Land advanceth it self by Tillage The warm lighter Land advanceth most in Corn to the Commonnwealth How to bank Ant-hills most speedily The best way to destroy Rush or coldness in any Pasture Moderate Tillage must needs advance â—and Advance for Plowing and the old Rent the first year after An offer made of making good a Lease after Plowing of old Rent and a great advance in Plowing Stratford upon Avon President Thâ— manner how to Plow such Lâ—nds Mow the Rushes Especiall directions for plowing Experiment of Plowing the second sort of Land and the fruits of it A President of the fruit that came of poor Lands worth but nine shillings an Acre To lay open Furrows clear is very good What Hardness and Harrowing is most advantagious Overâ—plow cryed down and reproved Reasons why but three or four yeares are prescribed for Plowing old Pasture Land neither more nor less Last Crop may yeeld most Corn but worst for the Land To lay down Land upon the Wheat or Rie Stubble is best and the reasons of it The way of Sowing Land to be left after to Grass Dung laid upon the new fresh Turf works wonders When one Load of Manure will go as far as two or three Prov. 12. 11. Prov. 28. 10. Prov. 13. 23. Prov. 11. 16. Prov. 13. 23. Richst â—or â— of Land Destruction of the best Land is by over-plowing Mowing Land a great Impoverishing Moderate Plowing better than unlimited Mowing Plowing left indifferent upon the Richest Lands Divisions of Land advanceth Small Divisions reproved Plowing the onely Cure of VVeeds Plowing the only Cure against Mossiness Rush Coldness Object Against timely Soarding Ans. 2. Plowing some Land must be used as a Medicine â—oâ— as a Calling VVhat Land it is that may Soard as well the first year to as much profit as before A President of Wheat stubble its speed so Soarding Object Ans. A president of fattest Mutton on the newest 〈◊〉 Object Ans. Rotting Sheep in new Pastures well ordered may be rate To prevent Rotting in new Tilled Pastures Separations and raising of Quick-set Hedges a greâ—t advancement Hedg rowes a thing of delight and credit Reasons why Quick-setting thrives no 〈◊〉 Hedg rows a great help for Firing and Timber Not preserving Quick-sets when planted is ruin to good Husbandry Usuall wayes to kill the Rush Flag or Mare'-blab Drayning the most naturall way Much Trenching reproved How to find the matter that â—eed the Rush Flag How to drain Land well where there is no end of Trenching The causes of Moals increasing VVant of a Law for killiâ—g of Moales a great mischief Pot-Tâ—â—p chief Engine in Moal Destruction Destroying the nests destroyes multitudes of them VVater best to destroy Moals Ant-hills Destruction Object Ans. Ant-Hills good to destroy Sheep or Beasts How to bank Ant Hills most speedily Why to lay them lower than the Surface of the Earth Sow-thistle a great annoyance Easiest way to destroy the Sow-thistle Goose Tansey Feâ—rn howâ—o destroy The reason of Fearns dying Easiest way to destroy Broom Excellentest way to destroy Broom Goss Ling and Braking When one load of Soyl doth as much good as two or three An unsailing way of destroying any filth Planting Fruit-trees in hedges is good husbandry Chief piece in Planting all fruits Best Earth discovered How to reap two Harvests An unfailing way to preserve Corn from Blasting The most usuall naturall help A good help to preserve Corn pure To preserve Corn from Fowls and Vermine An unfailing Prevention of Crows Rooks or Daws from Corn. The Reason of the Crows offence taken The fuller Description of the Persian VVheel Improvement of Up-Land several waies President of Plowing Wood-Land Land A Husband-mans old principle Wood-Land Lands Tilled every ten yeares yea some every eight Means or Materials to in-rich Land Liming of Land Object Ans. Presidents for Liming The Land most naturall for Lime The nature of Lime quite contrary to the common opinion How much wil Lime an Acre Marl. Nature of Marl. Signs of good Marl described Slipperâ—ress no infallible sâ—gn A Marling Experiment Some Mucked some Folded some Mâ—râ—ed One no cost at all A double Experiment Marl saddens Land exceedingly Extremes is Marling reproved How to lay down Land to graze after Marling The Prime Principle in Husbandry Land most naturall for Marl. Sand. Of no worth or use at all Sand from the Land-flood are good What Lands are naturall for Sands Pest Sand of all What causeth so much richness in the Sea Sands The Seas fruitfulness by Fish Sea Weeds very good soyl for Land Urine frâ—itful The richness of Snayl Cod. Where the right Snayl is to be got The chief River whereâ—n this Mud lyeth comes from-ward Vxbridge by Cole-brook and is not the Thames as I can yet discover having made a Journy thither since I wrote the aforesaid discourse Mud in Rivers of great use Bacons Naturall History pag. 123. Chalk Chalk mixed most certain Mud. Ingenuity not of such esteem as a base Outlandish fashion Earth covered with any house or baâ—n is rich Pidgeons and Poultry dung little less inferiour Horses well corned make best dung Swines dung most excellent soyl The great account of swines dung The usage of their Swine and the making of the Hogyard How to feed Swin without any cornish meat Raggâ— VVoo's Marrowbone Beef Broaâ—h Sheeps-Dung How with great ease to raise rich dung Horse Dungs Excellency A great mistake in letting soyl be uncovered How to lose none of the least benefit in mucking any Land notwithstanding Land-floods Some lose no Laâ—d flood at all Vrine of mankind usefull for Lands Ashes Soot Best Manure for Gardens Stubbâ—e or Straw Salts effect How much Liming Corn or watering Corn advanceth it Oyl the fruit thereof Leaves of Tâ—eâ—â— Fearn or Rushes will make soyl The most naturall Land to plant with Wood. How to cast our thy Wood-plots for pleasure Method and conâ—usion to thee bring of an equal price and probably be the cheaper How to cast out thy plot into most delightfull divisions Planting Strawberyes is excellent How to get thy seâ—s for planting The quickest growing wood What Sets are best How to plant thy Sets How to make thy Dike to Plant thy Sets in How to plant thy Quick and mould them also Object Ans. 1. Ans. 2. 2. A President of Wood planted that one Acre was worth 60. at 11 years growth What an Acre costs plenting Object Ans. 1. Ans. 2. No Observation of the Moon Eccl. 11. 4 5 6. Weeding most necessary Boggy-Land will bring forth a Plantation of Wood. What one Acre of
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
will not neither sometimes can the Improvement be made upon any unless upon all joyntly or else upon an unsuppotable Charge or Burthen As also the not cutting straight such watercourses of such brookes and gutters that are exceeding crooked which some that would cannot because of others interests that will not abundance of the best land in this Nation is hereby lost and wonderfull Improvements hindered the waters raised the lands flouded sheep rotted and cattell spoyled all by this neglect The remedies to all the three aforesaid Prejudices to resolve the greatest advantage to the Common-wealth and then command them either unto a loving Conjunction in the Exchange and Improvement or else disabling any one to hinder another that is desirous of it giving such recompence for any dammage he shall make as shall be adjudged reasonable by indifferent men or competent Judges A Fourth is Unlimited Commons or Commoning without stint upon any Heath Moor Forrest or other Common This is a great Prejudice to many poor men both Cottiers and Land-Holders who have not of their own to stock their Commons and so lose all that have least need and for whom those Commons were chiefly intended And also a great hindrance to all for being without that every man laies on at random and as many as they can get and so Overstock the same that ordinarily they pine and starve their Goods therein and once in four or five yeares you shall observe such a Rot of Sheep that all that the Oppressor hath gained by eating out his poor Neighbours all the other years is swept away in one and so little advantage redoundeth to any So that many thousand Acres of Land are as it were useless which were all men limited according to their Proportion of Land or Dwellings to which the Common is due the poor that could not stock theirs might set them and reap some benefit by them And were they easily stinted their Commons might be as good as their own Severals to every man that hath an interest A Fifth Prejudice is A Law wanting to compell all men to kill their Wonts or Moales the good Husband doth and the slothfull man neglects it and thereby raiseth such a Magazine or Nursery that they cannot be destroyed but as fast as one destroies them the other nurseth a fresh spply to fill the Country the Prejudice is greater than can be reported The sixt Prejudice is the not compelling men to plant Wood where they do cut down then to set again a treble proportion or more to what they do destroy especially now so much of the gallant Wood of the Nation is exposed to sale We forget that it is a mighty pillar in the upholding this poor Island and how honorable a custom it is in other Nations that look what Timber they cut down they must plant five or ten times as much in stead thereof And that all men might be compelled to plow their coarser old mossy rushy bankie pasture Lands being now fittest for it and will be bettered by it and suffers for want of it and the Country needs it and none prejudiced and for the best land every man left to his own liberty A Seventh Prejudice is the want of a through searching of the Bowels of the Earth a business more fit to be undertaken by the Honourable Representation of the whole Common-wealth than by any particular man Whence are all our Mines of Lead Tinne Iron Coales and Silver Mines in Wales were they not once hid and as uncertain as we are now certain of them and what should hinder but that in many places else the like may be discovered as suppose Coal in Northampton Buckingham and Oxf. Sh. what a great benefit to those Countries would it be Nay if some sorts of Stone could bee but found out in some other parts what might it arise unto Nay say that either Marl Chalk or Lime or some other fat Earth could be found in some other parts where they are wanting how much would it inrich those parts And who can say but Silver may as well be found in other places as in Wales or other parts I am sure that no man knowes but he that hath searched it and the hundred thousand part of this Nation hath never yet been tryed The Eighth Prejudice may be the many Watermills which destroy abundance of gallant Land by pounding up the water to that height even to the very top of the ground and above the naturall height that it lyeth swelling and soaking and spewing that it runneth very much land to a Bogg or to mire or else to Flagg and Rush or Mareblab which otherwise was as gallant land naturally as could be I am confident many a thousand a year are thus destroyed some mills worth above 10 or 12. pound per an destroy lands worth 20. 30. or 40. per. an I know it of my own knowledge I had some few yeares since a Mill Dam in my land which destroyed one half of a gallant meaddow meanes was used that it was removed and that very land is returned to his perfect pureness again I prescribe not the utter destruction of all of some I do and others to have their water brought to a lower gage and where they are wanting Wind-mills erected as in all the Fen Country are no other or else incouragement given to some that I am confident are able to discover a compleat way for grinding all sorts of Corn by the strength of horse and man as feasible as malt is I am able to give some assistance my self to this work but shall far prefer others thereto A Gentleman that hath waded so deeply therein as hath discovered publiquely his modell at Lambeth deserveth great incouragement And the last though not the least is the raign of many abominable Lusts as Sloth and Idleness with their Daughters Drunkenness Gaming Licentious Liberty Were not the greatest and best and all men made to be usefull to the body why continue many men as members cut off from it as if they were made to consume it are neither usefull in their bodies minds or purses to the common good how comes City and Country to be filled with Drones and Rogues our highwaies with hackers and all places with sloth and wickedness I say no more but pray some quickning Act to the execution of our Lawes against these worse than heathenish Abhominations All which with many more great annnoyances and Annusances though some may think every man will be ready to remove but we being under such a drowsie Age that though each particular shall be advantaged as well as the whole body yet it will not be indeavored as far as I am able to see into mens minds or practices are no way possibly removeable but by Your Honours either compelling them by acting Ingenuity themselves or else so incouraging others that are desirons thereof that None may Prejudice Improvements by denying any liberty for carrying on the Work receiving reasonable satisfaction
thy industry in improving thy lauds viz. Some speciall directions when thy Lands are improved how to use them or stock them to the best advantage of the Common-wealth and thy profit and therein shall indeavour these five or six particulars First to hold forth the best way or meanes of breeding or rearing all sorts of cattle sheep beasts or Horse Secondly to shew the way of Cow-keeping Dayrying or raising most Cheese aud Butter And thirdly the waies of Grazing and feeding all sorts of Cattell All which are three staple Advantages of the Nation and will hold hands with Tillage Corning Trade and Merchandize and shall add Fourthly how to raise a great advantage out of Goates and Conneys for your harder stocking Lands and some two or three more particulars that thou maiest not be wanting in the usage of thy land as well as in the Improvement of it and it shall strive excedingly to dismystery them all and in the fift and last place shall proportion all with the most suitableness I can to those severall lands by which they may advance the highest profit and greatest increase and all as largely and plainly discovered as I am able By a wellwisher Of prosperity to each self which is the Common Wealth Whose faithfull servant is WALTER BLITH To the Honorable the Souldiery of these Nations of England Scotland Ireland Gent. Commâ—nders or Souldiers IT may be thought strange to direct an Epistle of this nature to you as conceived by most least capable of being Instrumentall of advancing the common good in this nature yet knowing strange things are wrought by contraries and finding the best husbands through my observance among those who have been least conversant therein have not the least hopes of you yet from a Principle of charity too lest that your learning your fingers to fight and discontinuance of your callâ—ings might difuse your bodies and minds so from labour as to discourage you from your callings have thought fit to let you know You also may be very capable to doe good service to your present Generation in this design And though many say you are more likely to lengthen cut the War to prevent Improvements I am of better hope and sure that the Armies late progresses have manifested the contrary yet I shall humbly take the boldness to press your speeding as full an â—nd thereto as you are able both for your own good and these Reasons 1 Because of the gooness and welcomness of a Calm after a Storm no less will be a setled Peace after so great a War and a little breathing will recover strength and spirits 2 Because you need not fear want of good Imployment afterward This piece will open many doores for that and I am confident Activity and Ingenuity will much inlarge our Quarters and make this Nation Rehoboth and with good husbandry indeed would more comfortably maintain hundreds of thousands more than are allready born and I hope you will learn to hate Idleness wholly as love Liberty dearly 3 And lastly because your selves are interested and possessed of many lands and those such too as will admit of great Improvement with wise management and some of them as great as by this discourse is here proposed and though you may conceive your late lands designed for your pay were highly surveied and to all advantages to raise them yet those advantages of Improvement were not to be considered nor indeed could be discovered by them which understood them not nor was any of them purchased at any other rate than the present value to be then set and let to present Tenants which Lands are as full of vast Improvements as any lands in England for all which causes I need press no more but in the honour I bear to a Souldiers name which God himself hath honoured by stiling himself a Man of War although I take no pleasure in War otherwise than in submission to Gods will and the accomplishment thereof which is not to be resisted or repined at for the satisfaction of our inclination to ease peace or rest upon this account or any other I beseech you so long as necessities command you to it to preserve alway a good Conscience within for although hopes of Victory without may carry man through great hardships yet your peace with God reaches up to heaven and cannot be scaled with Ladders nor undermined with batteries being founded upon a Rock nor starved with famine a good Conscience being a continuall Feast Mr. Fuller in his holy War gives this description of a good souldier That he that is most couragious in War is quiet and painfull in Peace and comfortably betakes himself to his calling The wielding of the sword hath not made his Spirit unwieldy for his private Calling And I having this opportunity to distribute this mean peece unto the World thought good to offer a Portion amongst you the Honourable Souldiery as for Edification how you may turn Improvers too also humbly to desire your assistance in the work so far as in you lieth to remove some grievances and Impediments of the Common-wealths advantage largely discovered in the other Epistles which brevity causes me to omit and so no more but humbly pray you study how to serve your present generation in extolling Gods glory endeavouring the common-good and in the interim abandon privacy of spirit Remember Christs Counsell view the promised Land and rejoyce to think of that day when your swords shall be turned inro Ploughshares your speares into pruning hooks and Christ only be exalted in the Earth and you brought back again to sit under your own vines and figtrees eating the of fruit your own labours and enjoy one anotâ—er in Peace which once accomplished here is cut out work for you some to till the Land and others to feed the Cattell as from the beginning so will this be the lasting Improvement Then will the God of Peace keep them in perfect Peace whose minds are stayed on him And Emanuell will break in pieces all that gather against him which is the Confidence and full Expectance of Your quondam brother fellow Souldier and very Servant Walter Blith To the Book GO tell the World of Wealth that 's got with ease Of certain profit gain most men doth please Of Lands Improvement to a treble worth A Five a tenfold Plenty's here held forth The greedy Land-Lord may himself suffise The toyling tenant to estate may rise The poor may be enricht England supplyid For twice so many people to provide Though this a Paradox may seem to you Experience and Reason proves it true By floating dry and purging Boggy Land The Plough old Pasture betters to your hand Directions to Inclose to all mens gain Minerals found out Land rich'd with little pain Woods ordred so in few years yeeld such store So large so good as you 'l desire no more In fine all Land in each Capacity In which it lies made Pleasant to your eye P. W. To the
part of the Land by the severall casting up of much mould upon the Grass all which are hinderanees very great to the increase of the owner But for the Ant-hils if my opinion fail not excedingly they are grand enemies to the Grazier and Husbandmans advantage they destroy more than men observe I do beleeve that in some great Pastures in England there is one fourth part of the clear fruit of that Land lost by the multiplicity of them and little better in other pastures by the Molehills for although some are of opinion that the Ant-hills are little or no prejudice they are much mistaken and they will clearly bee convinced thereof if they will but either seriously consider the quantity of grass that groweth upon them or else consider the rareness of Cattle feeding upon them and then also consider the quantity of Ground and good Ground they cover will easily appear the great prejudice by them And that the sand and gravell washed from the Mole-hill is a great cause of rotting Sheep I absolutely affirm But thereto some may object they make more ground I Answer they do such as it is destroy a lesser good quantity of Land and add possibly a double bad but let them consider that this Addition is a great Substraction for if you weigh what I said before they bear little or no grass a little wild Time and speary harsh grass that Cattell eat not but a little thereof in case of hunger And I am sure they cover a great deal of good land Doe but really consider it upon experience made upon one Acre and thou shalt find that one Acre plain or bancked shall do as much service as an Acre and near an half shall do that is so hilly And again if you do not flatter your selves in your own judgments you will find that while the Land was plain if you consider the fruit it then yeelded and the Cattle it then maintained you will find there is no proportion between what it then kept and what it now maintaines for in my experience I find that old resty Land much overrun with these hills much degenerates and doth not nor hath of late yeares kept the former usuall Stock it kept before it grew so hilly and so old by near or about one fourth part which I am sure is as much or more advantage or clear profit the Grazier Breeder or Tenant need expect and although some will not acknowledge their experience herein yet many I am sure they find it by losing proof besides the danger of casting their Cattle and Sheep betwixt the Hills which oft destroyes them Another cause of Barrenness is Bogginess or Mieriness which turns all Lands both bad good and better into such a state of Barrenness unfruitfulness that it in some parts almost destroyes the Land and in other parts it wholly destroyes it and in some places makes it worse than nothing foâ— in stead of yeelding some fruit it not onely yeeldeth none but corrupts and prejudiceth other Lands on which it borders and it self most dangerous to mischieve the Goods or Chattell that do pasture upon the same and so may be accidentally many degrees worse than nothing Another cause of Barrenness is the Overflowing and constant abiding or resting of the waters of the Sea Fenns Rivers standing Lakes or Pools for be it fresh or salt water if it lye constantly upon it it assuredly destroyeth it although some more some less according to the deepness and barrenness of the water which covers it the soundness of the ground on which it lyeth so is the fruitfulness more or less perspicuous Some pretend strange causes which my plainess fathomes not nor much affects our Country Farmers now Yet one more I must not pass by that is such New Inventions for the Improving of Land discovered by some young Husband-man at experiences as I conceive the use wherof will rather destroy Land and wast a mans profits therupon than advance some such I have lately found in a little book called New Inventions for the Improving lands Printed for J. S. and sold at the sign of the Ball on Adling hill 1646. By which I fearing some willing to lay out themselvs in Husbandry experience should be beguiled by his so great overtures of Advantage I shall onely speak to two or three particulars and leave the rest to thy leisure to consider of First As to his manuring Plough manuring Wagon manuring Stone Corroding Harrow or Corroding Rakes which he pretends as Improvements so far as my shallow Principles will compass are likely to prove Impoverishers because while a man stands to dress his Land with fine mould in which is a little strength his Land decayes for want of good soyl or ranck muck which he may sooner lay on work into his Land by the old way than he may his fine earth by his new devised mysticall Instruments not one of them discovered neither but puzzle thy self thou mayst about the thoughts thereof and though thou givest twice as much for the book as it is worth for so thou must thou art but where thou wast at first And for his Seed-Barrâ—w could he but hold that forth to set Corn as he pretends it might be of some good use because certainly setting Corn could it be done with speed and at a certain depth and well covered would be worth discovering but of this I have as little hope and as low an esteem as of his other aforesaid Instruments because he holds it out to contain one Tunnell onely for his Seed which did it contain a hundred would more likely prove for in setting one seed at once no Engine can come near the hand-setting as I conceive And this I charge as a great prejudice and may be as a barrenning the land while men stand looking for great things they neglect their ordinary and old way of Hushandry far better Another cause of Barrenness which this Gentleman puts as a meanes of Improvement is the setting up or banking into a mans land the Rain water or cold Spring water and then trampling in dung by carting and cattell as he saith will raise and increase mire and dirt and so it will I must confess but what that mireand dirt is worth I know not the dung would be excellent good of it self but what it will be in this course of husbandry I not only much question but affirm that in all my experience that treading poching and holing land in winter was an exceeding great hinderance to Corn or Grass that Spring nay some Land I have known so poched by Cattels treading though fothered upon the same both in Kent and Essex and many other parts that it hath not recovered of divers years And what strength or vertue cold spring-water or rain-water hath to fatten any land I know not but wonder then how we have any barren land in England And to make good his Assertion he appeales to them that
under this Capacity you must seriously consider the Situation of your Lands If your Lands be a little hilly and your Brooks run more swiftly more Lands may be brought under them Also if your Lands lye more shelving or descending towards the River or any low descent whatever that your water may fall off as fast as it cometh on the quicker and easier will your Land be Improved especially if your Land be sound light or gravelly This is a most gallant opportunity let your Lands be what they will or of what nature soever if it lie descending the advance will be great enough if you have either a constant stream or Landflood And here let me good Reader advertise thee of one Piece of husbandry most highly commended of most men And truly so it is very commendable and excellent compar'd either with those that use none or else neglect this where it may be done which is this Many Gentlemen have assaid to water their Lands by setting the Water in Pooles Ponds or Lakes upon them and continuing it standing and soaking many daies and weeks together yea some practise it although their lands have layen descending and then draw their Sluces or remove their stoppages and drain away all their water again to which way of flowing I incourage all men rather than neglect all and honour them therein yet if they please to make experiment of the succeeding way of floating they will easily let this fall The excellency whereof consists in the speedy taking away the Water as soon as it is brought on And onely suffer it to run over and so with all speed run off into some drayning Trench again The Method whereof shall at large be handled by which such a concealed Advantage will be discovered that men will wonder how they were so easily deceived Wherein I shall be somewhat larger because able men much differ both in their opinions of both waies of watering as also in their manner of working the same My advise shall he never cover thy Land with a standing Water unless for a day or two or else in case thy Land should be so Levell that it hath no descent at all then better set the Water upon it than neglect it so thou be sure to drain it after one or two days standing and then bring it on again take it off again as aforesaid yet it is impossible ever to produce the like effect as it shall according to the subsequent directions Because it neither receives the full fruit or fatness of the water so fully and kindly nor is grazable and feedable so soon nor yet so richly as in the other kind of working 2. After thou hast considered the Situation of thy Lands as aforesaid then search and find out the lowest part of thy Lands and there having found such a Levell or descent as will lay all thy Lands dry again as thou shalt have occasion to float them which drain must be wrought So deep as that thou maist go under that corrupt feeding or springy moisture that breeds and feeds the Rush Flag and Mareblab or else causes thy Land to turn Spewing Morish or boggy which two Advantages if thou hadst discovered and found upon thy Land which little Land in England but hath one or both of them come to the third Direction and 3. Therein consider seriously the nature of thy Land which if it be cold and of a sad Nature moyst and spewing and lie very Levell It will require then a very good Land-flood or a constant River to overflow it and other barren hungry Water will do very little good thereof But if either thy Land be Gravell or of a sound warm sandy or mixed nature and any whit descending then any Running stream will have a gallant Operation The warmer lighter and sounder is the Land the greater is the Advantage These particulars discovered out of question thou hast a wonderfull advantage before thee especially if thou hast any great length and quantity of Land along the River or by a great Road-way side or else hast any good Land-floods from great Towns or Cities make as much of these Advantages and prize them as thy Lands for though hereby thou canst make thy Lands no more yet thou mayst make them so much better as thou canst desire Suppose some man of great credit should say Sir you have two hundred Acres in such a place what if I should lay you a hundred more in the midst of them he would wonder at it yet because of the credit of him that spake it he doth not wholly disdain it and if it could be done he deserved thanks for it but he doth do it really though not in kind that advanceth or Improves the Land but one third part that makes Two Acres as good as Three much more he that makes One as good as Three or Five or Ten as before this watering business be done shall clearly appear so I descend to the working out the same I had forgot another sort of Land which is your Boggy Quagmiry Land no less capable of a mighty Improvement if it fall under the opportunity of floating and ly any whit descending CHAP. IV. Shewes how to work thy Land and Water so as to reduce it and work out the Improvement promised WHerein a little consider of the way of both fitting thy Land to thy Water thy Water to thy Land with the truest naturallest properest Seasons for bringing it on and taking it off and thou shalt see an admired issue And being resolved that thou hast an opportunity upon thy Lands to make this Improvement out Plot out thy Land into such a Modell or Platform as thou maist be sure that all thy Land thou designest to this Improvement may not fail therin I mean that all thy Lands thou resolvest to float may be under the true Levell of thy Water And that this may be I shall here discover to thee how to carry thy Water upon the Levell that thou shalt lose no ground neither carry it so dead that thou canst not kindly work it this precisely observed may be in stead of many Persian Wheels so highly commended by Mr Gabriel Plats which Wheel is also commendable may be very usefull where either no good falls can be gained nor other wales the water cannot be raised to higher parts of ground you desire to water The description of which Persian Wheel I hope to give thee before this discourse be ended And also intend in my Additions if not where I describe figure out the Persian Wheel to discover a far better Engine that shal with less strength raise a greater quantity of water for any use And now for the Method or way of working thy Water upon thy Land without this Wheel which will require a double stream one to drive it and another to be raised without the charge of all other appurtenances to the said Wheel belonging as Dams
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
which if the compass of thy Land be not great and thy water small may be but a very inconsiderable charge And thy Engines may also be divers as an Engine or Windmill may with a water-wheel planted in thy Water-course or Master-drain or very near unto it which water-wheel must be made to that height as may be sure to take out the bottom of the water and deliver it at the middle of the wheel which wheel may be contrived into such a form as that the Ladles as I may call them or Peals or Scoops as others call them will cast up and cast out the water to a considerable height as a man doth with a hand-scoop pail or kit cast water out of a ditch which Engine shall at large hereafter both be described and the form of it delineated or else by a good chain-pump or bucket-work both which may be made into a Wind-mil-Engine or else with an Engine made with a perpetual Screw all which for that height as is requirable to the draining of such a Work wil lay a good compass of Land dry in a few daies and if time prevent not shall most of them be described at large 3. But a Third is most difficult which I yet conceive also fecible and may be recovered also to a great advantage And that is such a parcel of Land that lieth also at a skirt or out-side of the Fen although it may have some Land-flood running through it or near it which Land-flood if it be possible either to divert it on the one hand or the other of the Land you desire to drain or else if it be be a small Floud within the compass and power of an Engine may also be drainable and by the aforesaid direction of inbanking the Land to secure the Land-flouds from comming on at at all which with a reasonable Bank and a fair open passage to convey the Land-flouds clenly away may prevent the fear therof And then a fair Master-drain down through the lowest ground or neer the middle of the Fen you desire to drain which must be made so deep as that it may substantially draw all cold corrupt water into it self I prescribe no depth because I cannot give to all sorts of Fen-lands no nor to any other by measure a suitable and necessary proportion so far from off the place where it is to be made and this drain to be continued to that place where you have most conveniencie to land your water and there planting one of the aforesaid Engines I shall leave every of them to each mans own affection I know they will every one do the Work and that a very inconsiderable charge to the profits and advantages to be received and reaped hereby I shall say no more in this case because I much more desire the general Work which will make all these particulars to come on the easier The draining of the whole Fens yet considering the rubs that lie in the way of the general and the great delaies and uncertainties therof I am perswaded to discover the capacities of particulars As for the particular Engines the Figures and Delineations of them they shall hereafter follow to be described to the very capacity of the Country Farmer as far as possibly may be And because I desire to speak to the understanding of the meanest you must a little bear with my tediousness till you come to the practice and then you 'l find plainness very usefull and all I have said little enough to discover the same Now to proceed to the Fourth generall Head of this discourse to set forth the best way of Improvement of the aforesaid Lands I shall say the less because through my whole discourse it is my main Scope and so shall confine my self onely to some of those particulars more peculiar to these Lands though being substantially drained they are capable of the impress of any Husbandry whatsoever I shall therfore divide the Fen-lands into three sorts First The sound dry Land seldom or never drowned The Second shall be your constant drowned Lands in times of great Flouds And the Third shall be your lowest Land of all that lieth constantly so wet and cold that it is turned into a very Moor or Bog 1. Your dry Lands I for the present account them the very best and most capable of raising the greatest present profit I shall therefore because it is fruitfull of it self to grass and will yeeld advance enough thereby and also because there will be enough for many years of the other two sorts remain to husbandrize and toss and tumble up and down perswade to lay it all for pasturage until your other Lands be perfectly recovered and improved but this may prove undoubtedly excellent Hemp-land Oad-land may be Mather-land and most excellent yea rather too good for Cole and Rape-seed because there will be other worser enough for that 2. To the second sort only drowned by up-land flouds so lie dry when the floud is gone I say if this be not leavened with coldness or steeped so w th constant corrupt water that it is turned into a moorishness but yet remaines perfect Land and clear Soard this very Land may prove your best Land in a little time and therefore I shall onely for the reducing hereof advise to a moderate plowing of it and for the reducing of it to perfect soundness advise to raise it every plowing dividing each ground into lands about three yards over or thereabout which will take two casts of seed and in five or six tilths will rise up to so convenient a height as will lay it sound and dry and increase your Land also yet however you must not endeavour the laying any Land any higher than your drains will be sure to draw your furrows But in case the Level of your water will not admit you to raise up your Lands to so good a height then you were best make your Lands somewhat lesser and then the fewer plowings will lay them round and sound but be carefull not to make your last furrow alwais in one place but in each plowing shift one furrow or more sometimes one way and somtimes another and this wil preserve the furrow from overmuch barrenness This Land may be suitable and very excellent for Cole-seed and coming to its perfect soundness for most of the aforesaid opportunities but exceeding rich for all sorts of Grain out of question onely I shall earnestly perswade not to plow too oft nor impoverish it too much at first for hereby most men undo their Lands I conceive it best not to plow any of these Lands no longer than it is brought into a perfect Tilth or one year after three years may do best though four years may do well and you will find a gallant sweet Turf succeed and soard thick suddenly and sweetly and your succeeding profits all things considered may reach your very benefit of corning to a very neer scantling I
have heard very many object that matchless prejudice by so tedious and thin Soarding and have affirmed they have tried it by experience and find plowing wofully destructive And if you should demand how many years they plowed it they must needs answer some 5 some 6 some 7 some 8 and some 10 and others more and if you again ask them how they laid it down they must say for the general they cast them down and left an open Ridge to grass and if you should again demand upon what stubbles or eadish did you lay down your Land for grass some say upon the Peas stubble or Barley and here there one upon the Oats which is better than either of the former but none say upon Wheat or Rie which I as highly commend and for the first yeares Soarding goes beyond them all they neither bestowed any soil upon it first nor so much as a few hay-seeds at laying down and yet they will tell you a story of I know not what experiences they have made when alas they never knew that an Experiment must hold in all its parts and relate to times seasons natures as well as fruit and crop and so bring an ill report upon the best husbandry and stifle their own greatest gain But of this no more because in other parts of the Book it is more largely discussed yet bear with me if repeated because this is the discovery of the husbanding of a new World as a man may call it I proceed to the Third sort which is your lowest land of all and lieth deep and long drowned that it is even turned to very Turf or Bog and very little useful onely two or three months in summer it is commonable but whether profitable or no I scarce know nor being a stranger both in those parts to those Lands will I be peremptorily confident in any thing as will not hold proportion and use with other Lands I shall therefore only question whether in commâ—ning upon these Lands they do not oft stiflle their cattell in the morishest places whether they rot them not or choke them not through many uncurable diseases by reason of the unwholsomness of their pasturage This I dare affirm I have seen many poor thin cattel which have brought Pharaohs lean ill favoured kine into my mind and such truly as I have not so familiarly seen upon heathy barren Commons ten Acres whereof is not worth one of these and yet thousands are prejudiced against the draining of them but to the Land it self being recovered and laid dry it will require more time to recover it self than the other better Lands require more cost and husbandry to bring it to Fertility and though all the preceding directions are or may be applyable here unto it in their propor Seasons yet some other work may be more naturall as a ground-work to other Husbandry and that chiefly upon your hassocky morish rough Land the which being left to grass I cannot conceive it worth in its present state not above 3 or 4s. per Acre and some under and yet that very same Land by paines and patience may recover to be very good Land immediately I shall therefore advise that this Land be turved or as some call it denshired that is all the hassocks cut up and the over-turf parted up and all laid upon little heaps till throughly dry and then burned to ashes and if it be all stringy rooty and very combustible matter then the thicker you pare it up the better for although I differ from many of the West-Country Husbands about this denshiring their thin turved Lands that are pure from roots twitch or moss conceiving that though it bring their Land into sudden Tillage and to yeeld out it's Spirit the first year it weakens the Land much there being no addition to it but a few bushels of ashes to an Acre in stead of good Turf or Soard that in a Summers working will be easily brought to Tillage and as I believe ads more by far to the fatting of the Land than those ashes do and I am sure when any one layeth down his lands to grass upon this Husbandry the Soard comes pale and wan and very lean and low and never riseth to a good Crop and whosoever seriously observes the same shal find that very issue yet to Lands of this nature I as highly extoll it and to all such foul Lands where is depth of soil enough and all so combustible as nothing else will work it unto Tillage In the midst of May or any time in the very beginning of Summer when the Land is thorough dry is best and the earliest also that you may have as much of the Summer as you can to the working of your other Tillages which being burned in a dry season proceed to plowing and ridging up your Lands and dividing them into such proportions as your drains will bear as is directed in the aforesaid last particular this will then be fit to take the impress of any seed much of this will bear Cole-seed or any grain which I leave to the discretion of the Country Experiences onely pray you study laying all sound and warm plow not too long and lay it down to grass either upon the Oat-stubble which will soard exceeding well the second year if not the first or upon wheat or Rie the Land harrowed and laid very smooth this will soard excedingly the first year as in other places of the Book I have at large discoursed And as your Land recovers soundness you will by your improving your own experiences have more Talents added to these you have more opportunities to raise 〈◊〉 advantages out of them Now to the conclusion of this Chapter I shall onely add a word or two of Sea-drowned Lands and it shall be very little because as to the improvements of them whatever hath been before spoken and applied to other Lands may be to these which being once recovered are very sound dry Land many of them and the rest may be reduced thereunto by good divisions and draines as in all other Marsh-Lands All the mystery of this is in the recovery of them which to discourse at large would be more tedious than profitable because as to the materials for imbanking or bounding the Sea whether Stone Chalk Wood or Earth little can be said because all must be referred to the conveniency and necessity of the place upon which they are requirable onely there must be great regard had to the force of the Sea that lies upon them and the strength and violence of the winds to which it lyeth most obnoxious for I am perswaded it is not so oft the Sea it self that makes the breach as the strength of the winds that forceth it over the banks neither can I prescribe the severall Locks or Water-gates necessary for letting out the Heavens water nor the bigness or strength of them that being proper to the place upon
affirming that the Land next unto it but a hedge betwixt which was far better Land and indeed so it was very near as rich again husbanded by very able husbandâ— the best in that Country and that Land good Barley-Lâ—nd yet never answered the pains and cost bestowed yet I resolving to make a full triall thereof I set upon it according to the prescription aforesaid Each Acre Plowing and Harrowing Spading and Dressing for indeed I made Harrowes on purpose also of divers Sizes it cost me about fifteen or sixteen shillings an Acre the two first Crops the very Dressing of it And for these Crops being but of Oates I could have had five pound an Acre being offered it by an Oat-meal man of himself though never asked growing upon the ground Nay six pound an Acre if I would have sold it which is a vast Rate for Oates in the middle of the Nation And indeed I found the ground so poor that it would not bear Barley for I tryed some Acres of the best Land in it but it was not worth an Acre of my Oates and after Plowing I gave the old naturall Rent as it was ever set at or really worth and that for many years and the Land is better lyeth sounder warmer and both yeelds more Milk Summers as many Cattell and Winters far more and feeds better than it did before without any other cost bestowed and the very first year I layd it down after Plowing it kept me more Cattell and better than ever it did before and will continue better for it for ever after CHAP. XVI Sheweth the best and most advantagious way of Plowing and Husbandring Lands so as most to Advantage it in laying down Land to Graze to make good the Improvement promised and not to over-plow as you tender the loss of your Land TO this end be sure to lay your Furrowes open and clean scoured up and capable to receive and carry away all your standing water or soaking moysture from your Lands and be sure so to Plow your Lands as you may cast your Lands into severall Furlongs that you may have one Furrow or Drain run into another and that next into another and so into the Master Trench which if it cannot be made deep enough with the Plow let it be done with the Spade substantially And so from one to another to carry away the Water that it may neither annoy your Corn throughout your Field in any Furlong nor your Land when you come to lay it down and then when you have Plowed your Lands wherein the more truth and exactness you observe therein the more fruit expect And when you come to sowing your Lands you must get very strong weighty Harrowes if you would do it indeed and not slubber it over as most do long tined and sharp and either they must be so weighty of themselves that they may work a gallant strong Team to draw them or else so loaden with weight that you tear up rough uneven places and raise good store of Mould which is a marveilous great Advantage to the Corn as for the ordinary way of Hilding Land as most do is Reproveable and then with two or three sorts of Harrowes each Harrow having his Teeth or tines thicker than other which will so curiously and certainly cover your Corn that you will have little or none â—ye uncovered but well moulded which will have such strength heart unto it as by Gods blessing you may expect a Crop answerable to your cost bestowed and far greater The next direction is that as I cry up plowing as a soveraign meanes of a great Advancement so I also as much decry Over-Plowing or the Plowing of Lands as most do some Plow as long as it will bear any corn and others as long as it will bear good Corn And others they Plow on any fashion lay their Lands as though they were over-running them both to Corn and Graze and when they lay it down some lay down sound warm dry Land very high ridge and furrow and small Land too very prejudiciall to their Land and themselves too and are justly reproveable others lay down strong cold Land flat unopen'd some part Plowed some unplowed full of balkes holes and hils as if they would secure or ingross all the coldness and Venom of all the water and hunger that is either naturally upon it or that falls upon it or passeth by it they matter not after what manner they leave it nor after what Grain I therefore prescribe onely three or four yeares to Plow unto this sort of Land and to raise it every year not less because the Rush Filth and Earth will not be rotted nor well compounded nor the nature of the Land changed with fewer Tilths nor the Lands well brought to a good height roundness and driness in lesser time for if it be cold Laud all that can possibly be done will not lay it high and dry enough nor the Mould wrought to her perfect tenderness and true Mixture whereby it may yeeld more fruitfulness but if the Land be very rich of nature and not well wrought nor the Rush perfectly destroyed nor the Lands brought up to a convenient height and roundness then one year more may do well which year shall yeeld the best crop outof all question but will draw a little more from the strength of the Land than any of the other yeares did and if the Land be in strength it may very little prejudice it and therefore this I leave to every mans pleasure upon this consideration and could wish that all men would so Plow as mainly intending the Advance and Betterment of their Land especially Pasture Land and no otherwise For you were as good lose some of your inheritance as you do in my opinion Or as good lose the Land which is but the Carcas as the strength and vertue which is the Heart and Life of it for therein is the Common Advantage when the Earth yeelds most increase or fruit and a little parcell yeelds abundance of fruit Fifthly and lastly I advise to lay down all Lands of this nature upon Wheat Mesâ—en or Rye Stubble which will exceedingly thicken and improve the Soarding and if my Principles fail not will raise as good a Soard in the first year as after any Summer Corn whatsoever will in two and must do well for these Reasons First because it hath one half year more to Soard in then after the Lenton Tylth and so is somewhat Soarded before Oates Barley or Pease are sown Secondly because winter Corn groweth thin long and a stronger Straw and gives more liberty to the grass to grow and spread the thicker and the Soard will also be very rich and fruitfull I likewise advise to sow this Land as early â—as possibly you can even as soon as your other Crop is ended the sooner the better unless the Condition of the Country very much oppose it how
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
in the manner or way of Husbandry and Plowing or else in the Method I propose in the laying of it down to Graze or else the Stubble you lay it down upon in all which if you pursue me not expect it not all being faciable and any man may more certainly and as I conceive more delightfully work by Rule than Random I say then in the ordinary course of nature Gods blessing accompanying it it shall increase and improve for many yeares and continue untill some of the former and aforesaid Corruptions predominate again Of which my self have had large Experiences and can produce many Presidents and do but you look into and upon much of your new laid-down-Land to Graze which being continually Grazed doth put more proof into all sorts of Goods breed better feed faster milketh fruitfuller than old Pasture that is Richer for ten fifteen or twenty yeares together I have bought the purest Mutton out of Land the third the fourth or fifth year after Plowing being about eighteen or twenty shillings per Acre than any Land in those parts of near thirty shillings an Acre hath afforded and in reason it must needs be so because what Grass comes fresh is pure without Mixture and sweet being Young and tender and having no currupt Weeds of Filth to annoy it and fruitfull having heat and strength left in the Land to feed it and for continuance fear it not if Grazed for the very Grazing will Inrich it every year and Improve it untill it grow so old again and over-run with Moss Ant-hills Rushes or other corruptions that it requires Plowing and then let it have it for the Lands and thy Advantage sake I know other Pastures which indeed were Plowed nine or ten Crops and did much prejudice the Lands thereby which I exceedingly condemn yet this President answers this Objection it lying now upon the fourteenth or fifteenth year after Plowing is better than ever was since Plowing and mends every year and is rich and healthfull if not more than it ever was and would far more have abounded in fruit if Moderation had been used Another Objection may be raised which is this your new Plowed Lands are more subject to Rotting Sheep than your old Pasture I answer usually it is so and Experience hath proved the same yet if you ever found any parcell of Land Husbandred according to these directions nicely observed as aforesayd that it was layd so high and round his over-Furlongs Drained by the lower and a good Master Ditch or Trench the lowest and Plowed but three or four Crops and laid down upon the Winter Corn Stubble c. you either found little danger in it for Rotting or else no more than other Grazed Lands thereabouts was subject to for in great Rot years indeed many of your Cold Sowr Rushy Pastures Rot themselves though never plowed especially such as have either great Road-wayes Drifts or Passages through them yet observe these two directioâ—s following put case it should Rot first or second yeares then Stock it with Beasts and that prevents it or else secondly with part Sheep those barren Sheep to feed and not with a breeding Stock and part Beasts and very easie that you may have Grass at pleasure to satisfie them to the full which will probably prevent them from eating Dirt or Gravell and this wil turn thee out as much profit and secure that danger in great measure out of question As for Rushes Moss and Coldness which doth not much offend the best sort of Land I refer thee backward to its more proper place and have little more to say in the Advance of this richer sort of Land but onely that in your Separations and divisions of your greatest Pastures you be very curious in erecting Quick-set Hedges after the manner prescribed in the â—ixt Piece and the three twentieth Chaptâ—â— and be most carefull of preserving them from biting and treading and well fenced from any Annoyance maintained with constant Weeding for two or three years together all which exactly observed you shall raise upon each Lordship or Pasture Fuell and Fire-wood sufficient to maintain many Families besides the Timber which may be raised in the Hedg-rows if here and there in every Pearch be but planted an Ash Oak Elm or Witchazell all which will not onely be most profitable but most delightfull and honourable unto men of Ingenuous spirits And if to this thou wouldest but add the sowing of Kernels or planting Crab-tree Stocks here there in all your Hedg-rowes and grasting of them and preserving them precisely til they come to Trees how gallantly would this good Land nourish them what a benefit might the fruit of these Trees yeeld either in Perry or Sider to be transpored into other parts or else to relieve our poor at home of which were there plenty this dear year one third part of the Mault of this Nation might be saved and so that Barley be for Bread But more of this in his proper place which I shall present thee with as an admirable Piece of Improvement of it self upon any Lands it is capable to be made as a new Addition in Orcharding Improvements Here two or three words more to shew the great Prejudice men suffer for want of these Plantations when they make divisions or separations in their Lands by new Quick-setting it When men have planted the Quick they conceive then they have don nor observing perhaps neither to planâ— it in the Over-most and Fattest Earth nor for to Root all their Sets in the best Mould nor when they have done to preserve it from Sheep and Cattell nor Mould it Weed it Hedg it and secure it as it shall stand in need for three four or five of the first yeares All which were it done upon all Opportunities No man almost in the Nation would be either at want of Firing or Timber especially were all such Fields Marshes Heaths and Commons thus separated and divided all which are fecible and might be done with great profit to all and prejudice to none I am ashamed to speak so much in these so easie and wel-known wayes of Husbandry but that there is so much neglect thereof as if men minded more their own and Publique Confusion and Ruin than Profit and Advancement Some will cast Banks and Ditches for separation and plant no Quick at all in them and so destroy as much ground as if they Quick-set it and spoyl the ground to no advantage and others will Quick-set and never Fence it Weed nor Mould it and so it either perisheth at first or else groweth dwindled lean and barren not worth any thing or else suffer it to be bitten or eaten with Cattell or else stifled with cutting or plashing before it is ripe or ready that it comes to no thickness growth or fruitfulness In all which were there but a little Patience and Addition of a little more cost and paines
whatsoever occasioneth Unfruitfulness and work an Improvement above what is Expected This way of destroying Broom Goss Braking or any such filth would be of great esteem had it been held out of it self under specious pretences of rare discovery as some can do but I am confident it is an unfailing remedy and will certainly destroy the pelf as it inriches the Lands and though many devices may be found out or strong conceits raised to do the same yet at present I know none so certain nor so profitable There is another opportunity of Improving almost any sort of Sound Land of which I gave a touch in the last Chapter Treating of the way of Improving the best sort of Lands of which it is most capable That is by Planting all sorts of Fruit-Trees in all your Divisions and Hedg-rowes where they shall not Prejudice one foot of Land and where they may grow as prosperously as in an Orchard if you will but wisely manage them The Cost or Charge of this Improvement is as easie as any that can be made if you will cast it into a Method That is when you make any Partition in your Lands which I know you will not without a Quick-set Hedge in which in every twenty yards you may Plant a Crab-Tree stock as well as a Thorn onely in setting of it be carefull of Moulding it plentifully with the best Mould you can get For that is the main Piece in Planting as I conceiee To lay a good Foundation in every thing prepares for a good Superstruction So that if the Root be Nourished from the Earth the Root will feed both Bough and Branch more plentifully Therefore though thy Land be naturally Barren yet make that place all round about thy Stock a good compass as good as thou canst with good mellow Mould and that which smelleth well in Digging is Fruitfull containing the juyce of Vegetables already prepared The Tender Mellow Earth is between the two Extremes of Clay and Sand and must needs be best And thus having Planted thy Stock in good Earth thy work is half done if thou do but now and then renew the same that is almost at it were take up thy Tree again or else get well under the Roots and so apply fresh Mould to them while they are Young and Tender And this will cause it to Thrive without measure and put forth a gallant Smooth Bark which it ever a Sign of a Thriving Tree So that be but a little carefull in the choosing thy Graft both for it self and the Fruit of it and then after Grafting have but patience in preserving of it a few years and here is all the Cost Required The Improvement may be wonderfull if men would but Plant their Grounds as in many Countries they do as in Worcestershire Hereford and Glostershire and great part of the Country of Kent they use Every Hedge-row is full of Fruit and some men plant whole Fields over every thirty yards asunder whereby they reap a Couple of Harvests One of Grass or Hay and another of Fruits O that I might but be a Remembrancer to this poor Nation of the many opportunities of Honour Wealth and Glory it is Capable of and that I could but perswade its Natives to take hold thereof and deliver the Earth of those advantages it is so big withall Judge the rest by this One Poor Piece Were all men but industrious herein how might the very fruit that might be raised in this Nation almost relieve it in such a year of Scarcity as this is like to be If it would not be bread to the Poor as it might be in some measure I am sure it would be Drink and how much Barley would that preserve to Bread-Corn that is now turned to Mault Yea had this very year been but kindly and a Plentifull Fruit-year what a great help would it have been to Enggland And might not England had it been but generally as Ingenuous as some Members of it are we might have had twice as much Fruit as now we have But certainly we are afraid lest Plenty should be our Ruin or else all men that Study so much to get Estates at second hand Each from other would rather strive to gain it at first hand Out of the Earth the True mother in whose Bowells is more Wealth than ever will be drawn forth and enough to satisfie whether theirs is or no I know not I am sure all Ingenuous men desire it that so they may be as the Midwife to deliver the Earth of it Throws it will send forth enough if thou wilt but lay an Egge in the Sand of the Earth 't will bring it forth Help the Birth be the Man-Midwife who is never in use but in greatest need Need and Misery is likely to be greater than is expected Yea I fear than hath been of many yeares If God work not above man And man work not now with God by all Prudentiall means whatsoever And so much and no more be said of Planting Fruit-trees at present untill I have gained more Time therefore and Experience therein And now I resolve to speak no more of any more wayes of Improvement here but onely One word of Preserving that We have already and 't is but onely to Direct a word or two how to keep Corn from Blasting and Seed from Vermine For Blasting is one of a Kingdomes Curses And therfore to Prescribe naturall absolute unfailing Remedies in all Places and at all Times is beyond my skill yet one Unfailing Remedy there is also the Removall of this so it is the Removall of all Causes or Occasions of Barrenness whatever And that is sinne the Root that brings forth all First brought forth the Curse and ever since the fruit thereof The onely Cure thereof is our Lord Jesus set upon the Pole he must damn the Curse for us and in us and we by looking up to him and our Application of himself to us Mourning over him and humbling our Soules before him Hereby must we be made Sensible of the Removall hereof by which and by no other meanes it is Removable But the naturall Helps as usually are Applied are the Soaking or Steeping Corn in thick fat water or Lime-Water or Urine or Brine and the Mixing-Lime or Ashes with the Corn while Wet and Moyst that so it may receive part of Smithon-Meal finest of the Ashes or Lime upon it self and Cloath it self with it so as it may fall cloathed all over to the Earth and so be covered therewith This hath been Highly Commended of late as a great Preservation of the Purity of the Corn and in some-parts of the Chiltern Country now put into great use so that instead of their Usuall way of changing their seed which hath been an Old received Principle of great advantage and I verily believe is very good Husbandry now they betake themselves hereto Yet however I would not Dehort but perswade mâ—n
use and benefit of Marl and giveth a President of the Improvement made by it MArl is also a very gallant thing I can say much for it far more than I resolve to speak to because others have spoken much therof though little to my especiall purposes It is commended of all men and very highly almost by every Writer that sayes any thing in point of Husbandry therefore I 'll say but little onely acquaint you with its nature and an experiment made of it and the severall Lands it is most natural for Advancement or Melioration to a little quicken the Practice where it is found and the Search for it where it is not yet discovered And for the nature of it it is also of a colder nature because it saddens the Land exceedingly and very heavy it is and will go downwards also but being so much of substance cannot easily bury so soon as Lime will and the description of it is not so much in Colour as some say as in the Purity uncompoundedness of it for in my Opinion be the Colour what it will if it be pure of it self that it will break into bits like a Die or but smooth like Lead without any Composition of Sand or Gravel some others of it if it will slack like Slate-stones and then if it wil purely slack after a showr of Rain question not the fruitfulness of it 'T is possible some Countries may yeeld severall Colours of Marl as it is affirmed of Kent wherein is found both Yellow Gray Blew and Red and the red is said to be the worst there which I will not here dispute because it never fell under mine own Experience in that Country yet I will say it holds not every where indeed the Blew and Gray are very Excellent and so also is the Red no less And whereas the common sign is said to be Slipperiness or Greasiness in which I will not contest but onely I say there is some as good Marl as is most this day in England which is not so but as it lyeth in the Mine is pure dry short if you water it you shal find it in slipperiness differ little from common Clayes The onely sign but the purest and truest sign as aforesaid is the incompoundness of it and if it slack also immediately after a showr and shortly after turn to dust after it is throughly dry again and doth not congeal and conglutinate like to tough Clay but dissolve fear not the Operation Adventure the Experimenting of it the fruit wil be answerable to thy hopes And now give me leave to tel thee a true relation of one Experiment of my own because I speak but little but my own Experiences upon an hard Inclosed Wood-land Farm I rented having some Land also in CoÌ„mon amongst the rest I had about fifteen or sixteen little short Lands or Buts lay all together in the Common Field All which said Lands were so gravelly of nature that there was but about two Inches thickness of Earth before you came to as perfect Gravell as any High-way yea so exceeding herein that in many places turned to Sinder like that the Smith casts forth of his fire as the corruption of his Iron Fire Coales congealed and also so hungry and barren of nature that before I converted it to Tillage little or nothing was made of it And to Graze it was not worth above two shillings an Acre and yâ—â— it was Resty and old Turf had lain long may be 〈◊〉 or twenty yeares And resolving to make an Experiment I searched for Marl found it where none had ever 〈◊〉 in mans memory nor within many Miles of it 〈◊〉 in an old strong Clay Pooll I conceived it lye the which Pool I was forced to cleanse being full of Mud that so I might make the better and greater fall of Marl at last and my Marl was perfect Red differing in nothing from Clay in colour but in the breaking into bits and ends like Dies not slippery as was discernable from Clay And because I would make an undeceivable Experiment of it which ever was my greatest Arrogancy I carried forth that Mud also to my Land and laid it upon two or three Lands as thick again as men use to lay on Soyl or Dung I also Mucked with the Cart two more exceeding well and as I remember Fold-Mucked two more Also I Marled three or four far thicker than I Mudded the other And one Land I neither Mucked Mudded Foulded or Marled nor laid any cost upon it at all yet Plowed them all alike brought them into good Tillage and Sowed them as I remember with Wheat and Rye mixed for the first year I reaped very good Corn upon my Cart-mucked Land and Fold-Mucked the best of all the best upon my Mudded Land the next and upon my Marled Land reasonable good not so good as the aforesaid sorts yeelded because Marl yeelds not forth his utmost strength the first year And upon that I laid nothing I reaped nothing not so much as Straw although I gave it the same seed and the same Tillage as the aforesaid Lands Whereby you may perceive the goodness of the Land which is bad enough indeed when it will bear no Corn at all for very little Land in England that is old and Resty and in good Tillage but wil bear some either Oates or Tares The next year I Sowed Barley upon all sorts of these Lands and upon my Marled Land was most gallant Corn and so was my Mudded Land my Mucked Land was the worst by far the Muck decaying and upon that I Soyled not I Sowed the second year with Oates and reaped nothing again that year also Then afterward I Marled that which before I had Mucked and that which had not Soyl laid upon it brought forth nothing the two years before which brought forth as gallant Corn as England yeelded And after three or four Crops my Mud decayed also and that I Marled again and had the same Fruit as aforesaid and for my Marled Land that I kept in Tillage nine years without any other addition of any Compost or Soyl at all and had as goodly Corn as grew and then I left the Land ever since with some small addition of Fold or Manure as they do the rest of their Lands that out-strips all the rest and is discernable from all the Lands to this day her in observe how it saddens Land this was Rye Land most naturally but it turned to Wheat Barley and Pease and as it is thus excellent for Corn so it is also very fruitfull and inriching to Grass-land provided you take heed of Extremes which most men are subject to run into which is not to Til it forth of heart for to Till it forth of heart is just as if you work an Ox off his legs a Horse off his stomack or a Man off his strength
make it most usefull for Seed and service I have heard much talk of three Crops and truly if it be not reserved forseed I am confident in a fruitfull year it will well bear it nay may be more for thongh I love not fauning neither affect I smothering the Thuth nor to eclipse any new discovery I therefore say that if the Seed be good and the Land either good naturall or artificially made good by Husbandry it may very well bear three Crops two to cut and one to graze and the first Crop may by mid May be ready to cut for this I say and most will find it though they otherwise speak high that this grass will be best alway to be cut green and before the stalk begin to grow too big and begin to dye and wither unless it be for seed Thefrore as experience will teach it will be excellent good to cut it green and young and give it cattle or horse in the house for if you cut it to keep it will go so near together as it wil doe but little service dry yet being cut young it will be very good and sweet and either feed or give milk abundantly and then after the first cut let it grow for seed and herein you must be carfull that it grow till it be full ripe for it will not be very apt to shed And if it grow to seed I cannot conceive of what use those stalks which are so hard and dry can be of unless it be for Firing in a dear Country so that the seed must be the advance of that Crop onely and so it may well enough and you may have a good after pasture and may grase it untill Ianuary and then prepreserve it but if you would know when your Seed is ripe observe these two particulars First observe the husk and when the Seed first appears in it then about one month after it may be ripe But Secondly try the seed after it begins to turn the colour and the stalk begins to dye and turn brown it begins to ripen and being turned to a yellowish colour in a dry time mow it and preserve it till it be perfectly dry any manner of way and then about the middest of March thrash it and cleanse it from the straw as much as you can and then foulter and beat the husk again being exceeding well dryed in the Sun after the first thrashing and then get out what seed you can and after try what a Mill will do at the rest as aforesaid more at large but I will give way to a better Discovery I need not prescribe a time either in Iuly or August as best to cut for seed because some years and lands will ripen it sooner than other will therefore have respect to thy seed and straw according to former directions but when thou art got into good seed thou maist graze it upon thy land and then be sure not to let it grow too rank and high for if the stalk grow big cattell will balk it and stain it more and it will not eat up so kindly at first nor grase so even afterward but exceeding much Milk it will yeeld and feed very well but to affirm as some have done and do confidently unto this day that it will grow upon the barrennest ground as is on Windsor Forrest I dare not I have known that there it hath failed and I am confident must without exceeding great cost and husbandry yet that very Land well Manured and Tilled Dunged Limed Marled or Chalked or otherwise made fat and warm will bring forth good Glover and other rich commodities as they do in Flaunders upon so coarse Lands bestow good cost and that will do The nature of the Land is good bnt the spirit of it is too low to raise it of it self And this is all is held forth in the discourse of the Brabant Husbandry exceeding barren Lands but well Dunged and Tilled and then Clavered not that it is the barren Land but the good and costly Husbandry onely the oldness of the Land and restiness thereof yeelds more spirit to the Grain or Claver by far than the Tillable Land constantly plowed and being of the same fatness and barrenness and no better yet I verily affirm that Tillable Land well husbanded and layd down with Claver will do very well also The quantity of seed to sow an Acre as I conceive will be a Gallon or 9 or 10 pound though some are of opinion less will serve turn And so I descend to my last particular which is 5 To set forth the Lands most suitable for Claver with the annuall Profit that comes thereby Therefore as above I say your old Land be it coarse or rich as it is or hath been disused from Tillage long is best for Corn so also is it the best and certain Land to Claver and when you have corned your Land as much as you intend then to alter it to Claver is the properest season 1 As to the nature of the Land as I conceive your dry warm Land naturally good betwixt ten and twenty shillings an acre or your poorer dry Land betwixt one shilling to ten shillings an acre well manured or soyled and brought into perfect Tillage and to speak properly and plainest any Land that will bear good Corn wil bear good Claver 2 Your earthy well mixed Land of a middle temper will do with good Husbandry as aforesaid as well as the former And lastly your naturall cold Land well Husbandryed laid up very dry and warm and brought into good Tillage every Land laid high as the nature and coldness of the Land requires and every furlong drained and the furrows cleansed up by the Plough at last wil bring almost any Lands into a very good condition for Claver and the better husbandried the better for this use also This I shall lay down for a generall Rule that whatever Land is neither to rank or fat for any sort of Corne whatsoever is not too good to Claver and you shall alway find it best Husbandry and best pofit upon your best Land unless as aforesaid you recover the barren Lands up to a good and rich condition which is also the far better Husbandry than to lie pelting and moyling upon poor mean Land unfatned by some soyls or other therefore I advise every man to plow up no more than he can exceeding well overcome by his purse and husbandry and let the rest lie till he have brought up his other and then as he hath raised one part take up another and lay down that to grase either with Clover or otherwise And let him that flatters himself to raise goed Clover upon barren heathy Land otherwise than as aforesaid pull down his Plumes after two or thee years experience unless he devise a new way of Husbandry And as to the annuall Profit that may accrew thereby I shall little differ from
it cannot sting or draw into the ground so is drawn at the end of that false beam either with Horse or Oxen with Cock or Clevies as you have occasion or do desire but because this plough cannot be fully discovered by the most familiar discourse but will require the Figure also I will here give ye it as near to the life as possibles That which is the Standard fastned in the lower beam and runs through the over to gage the plough is made near two foot high and in the over end is made two holes to put the Horse-raine throngh to come from the Horse head to the very plough handles to guide him to and fro and under them divers removing holes and one or two in the beam equall to those in the Standard and an Iron pin put through them both This plough neatly made and very small hath been drawn with one horse and held by one man and plowed one Acre a day at sowing time in a moyst season and as Collonell Blunt hath related to me he hath with six good horses six men and six ploughs plowed six Acres a day at sowing rime in light well wrought Land The Figure expect with his fellows CHAP. XXX Shall discover some generall faults that may be incident to all sorts of Ploughs and give you the description of the Dutch and Norfolk Ploughs I Shal now proceed in this place though not so Methodically as I should to discover the usuall faults of many ploughs of all sorts and most ploughs in England are tainted with some of them 1 When they are made too big both of Wood and Iron that is bigger than the work requires they are the heavier to be drawn carry the more weight with them and require the more strength to draw them A husbandman must have his severall ploughs if he will carry on his work comfortably 2 Fault may be in the roughness and ill compassendness of the Share as aforesaid and when a plough is made too thick in the very breast of this fault are many ploughs in some parts and though it help well in the sudden cast of the furrow and wil carry a great furrow with it yet it goes very sore of this fault are the plough in Holland in Lincolnshire which otherwise have a gallant cast of the Shield board as I ever saw which I have before at large described 3 Is the shortness of the handles by which a man cannot command his plough with that ease and truth as he might do if his handle had length and compass A short upwright handle exceedingly dislike a man having very little power to command the same when the plough is not truly held it never goes easie 4 The straitness of the Breast-board neither made nor drawn compass and croswinding for the cast of the furrow a very great fault to the Ploughs ease 5 The placing the Wrest even with the Breast-board and as long as it or near as long nay I have in some parts seen it longer It is as great a hindrance to the easie and true going of the plough as any I know and yet by very few discerned or reproved I say had I time I would give reasons enough to clear it that a good broad Wrest and five six or seven inches shorter than the Shield-board is best which being at the further end set even or a little under the breast-board and at the neather end where it is pinned either to land handle or otherwise it be set two inches narrower and under the Shield-board is both easie to the holder and to the cattle and a main advantage to the turn and strike of the furrow and especially the plough being made no broader behind than a just furrow breadth 6 And lastly the dulness of Irons and either not clouting at all or else uneven rough clouting and plating your ploughs is a considerable hindrance both to the ease and lasting of â—ste plough And these or any of them all are generalls and will hold let them be upon what plough they will or upon what Lands they wil or in what seasons soever and are greathindrances of the good of plough and Plowing And therefore what fashioned ploughs soever you make take heed of these Rocks and for what seasons soever you make them avoyd them all and then if thou wilt follow thine own Country fashion doe and God bless thee with it I say not that these are all the faults for there are many more particularly treated of also aforegoing but these are such as may be prevented in any common sort of ploughs whatever most of them In al sorts wil put such an advantage to the ploughs ease as with observing the foregoing directions also will be woth thy imitation In Norfolk and Suffolk are very good ploughs in many parts of the Country upon the sandy parts two horses one man will plow at ordinary seasons and almost any land of that sandy nature two Acres of a day many times one man with two horses hath plowed three Acres in one day They seldom go with above two horses and may with one horse and one man and if they plow any strong land that they are forced to put in three or four they set them double and have but one man to plough and drive Their ploughs are very small and light and little compassed all which are great advantages but the greatest is the Land which is a pure sand for the most part and very easie working land yet though this be the easiest yet we have in many hundred places of this Nation very sandy light land very earthy mouldy land a light mixed chissely land and abundance of Errable Land in very good Tilth where men usually go to plow with four horses or four oxen a horse and seldom less but many times more which might as wel if not better be done with two unless at seed time now and then two oxen and a horse or three horses and two men which is a wonderfull charge to the poor Husbandman the extremity of which charge were it but removed would be sufficient of it self to make him thrive and prosper I shall conclude this discourse with a relation I had froÌ„ a Norfolk Gentlman of very good worth and credit in that Country Upon the Marsh-lands bordering upon the Sea-coast a Gentleman set an hundred Acres to a man to plow he covenanted with him to find him horse and ploughs irons and meat for the horses and he was to find onely all mans labour and he allowed him eight horses for the work and for the mans labour that he was onely to find to plow this land the man covenanted to plow this Marsh-land which is a mixed earth we have many thousand Acres as easie plowing in England almost in al Countris for 5d. an Acre performed it he plowed his 8 acres a day he found but 3 men to the work he went to plow
with two Teems two horses and one man to one plough and two horses and one man together in the morning one man to shift them at noon and meat and gear them and then he brought in two Teem in the afternoon two horses in a Teem with the same men and so plowed as aforesaid his eight acres I saw the ground thus plowed the poor man got his three shilling and four pence for his men and himself that is ten-pence a day a man which is good wages in Norfolk It is a wonder that we should be so slothfull when some are so ingenious As for the Dutch plough I have also considered which exceedingly differs from our severall fashioned Ploughs therefore I shall not give you the large description thereof because as it is the pure Dutch plough it is only applyable to Fen ond Marsh-land where there is neither stone nor root nor hard place and the chiefest advantage it hath to east and expedition is in the breadth and sharpness of the share which is made about a foot and a half broad some more and sharp in the point and as thin in the phin as a knife and wrought most curious a good share being worth above twenty shillings which casts up a very grear broad Furrow very clean and easie as is possible out of which I have contracted as much there-from in the description of my Share as I can possibly allow to our uncertain changeable Land to advance the ease which many times alters the temper and strength twice or thrice in one land And then for the Coulter that is also especially applyable to the aforesaid Land but may be used upon any fair pure lay turf being old pasture And thus I have given you the description leave it to thy imitation a good one will cost a mark or fifteen shillings onely say you can hardly have a Smith in the country to work well upon it and far worse upon the share but as to the bastard Dutch which is somewhat nearer appliable to our Lands I have taken from it as much as it will afford me both in the cast of the Shield-board which is very good as also in all the other parts of it and do apply it to the plough hereafter described and shall ingeniously acknowledge I have some branch from every of these roots and from the Norfolk plough and one wheeled plough also from all which I find that the shorter and lesser any plough is made having its true pitch with its true cast on the Shield-board and short Wrest and sharp irons the far easier Of all which having so seriously considered made and tryed them almost every one upon severall sorts of Land and experimented them to the full with my own hands to my great expence shall descend unto my third General head for easing the plough CHAP. XXXI Thereby to demonstrate wherein the chief ease of the Plough consists with the easiest going Plough and the advantages gained thereby I Shall not with the least disparagement to any of them giving them their due praise and honor draw forth a description of the most easie-going Plough I can contract it to the least charge is possible having all these helps and lights and to add nothing thereto were a shame to an ingenious man I will therefore take a short beam deeper one way than another of a tough and dry young Ash betwixt five foot and six foot long rising in the Coulter-hole and strong there but thence declining both wayes for strength and so growing smaller wrought round and smooth my Sheath most exactly fitted into the beam and pitched pretty forward and driven up so close with a little lace or bragget put behind the Sheath into the beam and Sheath just butting at both ends when the Sheath is driven up which shall stand as a Buttress to support it and may be as serviceable as an Iron dog as many use my nearer Handle put upon a Tennant through the same and drawn close with two or three wooden pins and then both sheath and handle tennanted exceeding close into the head being about two foot long not standing upright nor level but beam-handle and sheath hanging from a perpendicular point one fifth or sixth part to the Land on the nearer hand my Furrow-handle with two good round staves planted on my Land-handle as wide in the ends as a man can hold them being very long and wel compassed and fairly wrought my share formerly described pitched true upon my head and drawn up with an iron bolt through head and pan into my beam and cottered up my share standing rather more hanging than the head doth so close and true as that water cannot pierce betwixt them either with a Coumb weelded on rightly compassed laid into my sheild-board placed as high as the earth works up and as smooth as may be to the end my breast not being too thick at the nose nor widening too suddenly and as soon as the earth comes to the middle my Shield-board to widen whelm or compass as if it would lie upon the furrow and so to widen and whelm more and more unto the very end or else a shiner planted upon my share most close wrought compassed and nayled to the sheild-board in the form before prescribed My Wrest a large hand breadth planted under my sheild-board bottom and narrower than it and rather yet narrower to the sheild-board end so that it retain the just and full breadth of my furrow and no broader it both goes easier and helps the cast of the furrow I desire it be well plated too but shorter by five or six inches than my sheild-board and by two inches than my Plough-head my whole Plough boarded up so close as no earth may get into it and plated very well and smooth in every wearing place whatsoevor As for the pitch both in breadth and depth that must be resolved both from the height you make your Plough if high in the chest your pitch must be the deeper about eleven or twelve inches or about ten or eleven and a half if to go single you must pitch it broader if to go double narrower Every common Plough-wright can help you here also understand what is here dirrcted my irons kept both hard and sharp in points and Phin and this plough being once well scoured and clean if it go not with as much ease as nature doth admit or Art hath hitherto discovered I will acknowledgemy mistake but what strength may draw it I shall not determine I have told you what hath doth draw the other ploughs before described and could you shew me all the Lands and all the temperatures at all seasons of those Lands I could easily demonstrate that but to me it is sâ—fficient if that I have both rationally and experimently discovered to thee the best plough easiest that I know or have read of in the world as I have cordially don and
will bear which is the mortess for the foot and therein you may place a square good strong piece of tough Ash or rather of iron into which you may have your iron Axeltree with its square end sitted into three or four severall holes of it by which means you may set your plough at a working gage and there continue it and alter it as you see cause which plough thus marshalled you may well plow upon ordinary errable land that is in good tillage a double proportion and also upon fair clean lay Turf and this you may manage with two men and four good horses but not either upon stony land or rough land the description and discourse wherof I give not in as of any great advantage above the other plain plough but for variety sake and to provok others to the amendment and perfecting of this discovery yet I for present see not but it may be of excellent use expedition upon many lands in England and to say much more is needless in regard of what hath been before spoken and experience of a good ploughman will order it at pleasure And so I shall onely discover one other plough that will both plow and harrow of it self at one and the same time and it is used in severall places in Norfolk yet casting about with my self the advantages and disadvantages also and finding not how it will so well suit with our common wayes of Husbandry as to be a general advantage I shall say the less only tell you the manner of it It is a common light Plough as all theirs are and as little and light a Harrow which may contain three little Buls about five Tines in a bull which is made light also and fixed to the plough at the one end of the beam so that as the plough turns this turns also and as the plough turns one furrow the harrow harrows it over reaching two more furrows and so by the over-reaching it strikes two or three times in one place which is sufficient for the covering any corn whatsoever shal be sowen upon Norfolk lands but finding these two prejudices against it viz either this land must be sowed as the land is plowed so it will take up a mans time sowing an Acre when otherwise a man will sow nine or ten Acres in one day or else it must be sowed before plowing and then it must be plowed in and harrowed upon the top of it which falls not under my experience having known much land â—all far the heavier and more subject to bind and bury than if onely lightly covered with the plough and laid more open and now thou â—ast the story that such a thing is and may be done may thy own experience be the determiner of the matter but after the writing hereof having communicated thus much to a Gentleman of art and worth do find that another addition may be made thereto which is how to drop the corn corn by corn proportionably to that quantity I desire to sow upon an Acre which if by his assistance I can experimentally make out I fear not to give you plough and harrow and seedsman all at once and all to work with two horses and one man upon some lands and with three horses upon all of this nature al to be done almost within the same compass of time that you are upon the plowing of it it shall not require one hour in the day more which if I shal accomplish you shall save near three parts of your seed also and a considerable peece of labour too and not fail to have a better crop through the blessing of him that waters all than ordinary wise All which I hope to have brought into substantiall experience upon my own lands by the next edition and then expect the faithfull communication thereof One word more which would have come in more seasonable about the description of the plain plough and that is how to make a plough that may last many years ten or twelve or fifteen years yea I heard a workman affirm he would make one should last twenty years As for the manner of the plow it is sufficiently spoken to already all lyeth in two things one thing is the wood it is to be made of and the other is the workmanship of it The wood especiall of the Sheath and plough-head which is the materiall fundamentall peece in the Plough must be made of heart of Oak which to me at first seemed strange but upon a full debate of the matter I find that if it be young tough Oak wrought so exact true in the joynts as may be kept so close boarded up as that water cannot get into any of them and laid alway dry and so kept but while in working and every part of it well clouted plated with iron and drawn close in the throat from a hole in the Share through the Head part of the Breast-board with a through iron pin which is to be wrought somewhat bigger under the head that so it may somewhat strain the share to a more perfect closure and stronger sticking to the head and wel cottered up through the beam being bored with a long shanked Auger through al And al the rest of the wood to be young white tough Ash and wrought compleat and true in every joynt laid up when out of use both out of wind weather out of question a good plough may well serve a mans uncertain life and so having as I hope in some good measure supplied that deficiency in Husbandry Mr. Hartlips Legacy chargeth us withall in the fifth page of his Book and so proceed to the next peece of Improvement The Third Peece of Improvement treats of Welde Woade and Madder three rich commodities for the Dyars CHAP. XXXIIII Onely holds forth Welde or Would as some call it or more properly Dyars-weed IT being a rich Dyars commodity beareth a long narrow greenish yellow leaf and bringeth forth a yellow flower which runs to a small seed far smaller than a Mustard seed very thick set with seed Pliny calles it Luted but Virgyll calls it Lutum and in our English Welde or Dyars-Weed It flourisheth in Iune and Iuly it in many places growth of it self in and about villages and towns and is of a very great use and considering the easie charge of the raising of it and the badness of the land upon which it will grow is of incomparable advantage For first it will grow of very indifferent land not worth above ten groats or half a Crown per Acre yea as some affirm the veryest hilly barren chalky light land not worth twelve pence per Acre will carry it and bear it to very good purpose but unto so barren lands I shall not give incouragement unless where there is little or none better but as any indifferent land so it be of a very dry warm nature it will do very well
many hils and hill sides good Woad-ground when the bottom ground will doeno service but your chifest is your home-corse or lesser ground lying near and bordering about the towns Your best and naturallest parts of England for Woad are some part of Worcestershire and Warwickshire Southward Oxfordshire Gloucestershire Northamptonshire Leicestershire some part of Rutland Bedfordshire and Buckinghamshire and some other places here and there all these parts have some admirable Woad-land in them But when it is a quick commodity as now it is dull they will find as much more land as now they will and then more indifferent dry sound warm land will serve but very dry and sound it must be and worth about twenty shillings an Acre to grase at least or else it will not bee worth the Woading And to plow to sow Woad it may be worth as much more as to grase yea somewhat more if it be extraordinary rich soyl and trading good but now as the seasons are and trading stands they will now make great orts of land and not bid any money for that which in good trading times they would have gone fifty miles to have took at great rates And wheras some write that it undoeth the land I answer as I judge in my own breast that in regard it is so often cut and groweth so thick and is so often weeding that it must needs do so as I beleeve al Corn doth draw forth some of the spirit therof but no more than other Grain would if it could be so oft cut up to grow again But it is the confidence of many Woad-men that will maintain against any man that it betters the land and mends it but to that I cannot accord neither but thus much I doe say it prepares the Land exceedingly for corn and doth a bate of the strength and superrichness or rankness thereof which corn would not wel endure for I maintain still that the richest Land is not best to corn for though the one may ouer-burthen and be so rank yet the other may bear as much to the strike and for goodness your middle Land beareth the bell away for corn in my opinion Very much may be spoke to this particular but I must shorten and will as much as may be and acquaint you with the use thereof And herein I must do these three or four things 1. Shew you how the Land must be prepared and sowed 2. Shew you how it must be ordered when the leaf must be cut and how ordered after cutting 3. And lastly how it must be tempered and seasoned to make the best Woad for use and profit but before I proceed I must inform my Reader that this commodity can not be played withall as you may doe with Liquorish and Saffron c. to make experiments of a little parcell but a man must of necessity set forth and forward so much stock and Land and seed as may keep one Mill or two at work to make it into perfect Woad It is the doing of a great quantity and carrying on a great stock that makes this work and will carry it on to profit and credit Some have as much underhand and will work six or eight Mills The charge of it is exceeding great in the mannagement of it and as well it payeth for all charges as any commodity I know of that is of old experience The ground must be old Land as aforesaid and a tender Turf and must be exceeding choicely plowed if very hilly they must be cast and well cast that that you cast forth lie not high to raise the furrow they usually plow outward or cast all their Lands at the first Plowing and having broke the ground with a Harrow then they sow it and sow about four bushels or strikes of an acre which done then cover it and harrow it very well and fine and pick of al the Clots Turvees and stones and lay in the hollow places of the ridge on heapes as is the usuall custom but now I should rather if there be no other reason than I conceive chuse to take a little Cart with one horse and as the boyes or children pick them up cast them into the Cart and carry them into some flank or hollow place and lay them down to rot or else mend some barren place because they lose a good considerable part of Land and so of Oad too which otherwise might be as good as the rest and is now worth nothing the Land that is lost is very considerable in regard it is so goood of it self and the stock so good and rich that is sowed upon it that all even ground had need be regained that possibly may be And so I descend to the second particular 2. Which is to shew how it is to be husbandried and when the leaf must be cut and how used and how oft c. After the Land is sowed and it begins to come up as soon as any weed appears it must be weedded yea may be twice weeded or more if it require before it be ready to cut but if it be speciall good and come thick and cover the ground well it will ask the less weeding to them that are exercised in this service and have their work and work folks at command they will have it weeded for eight pence an acre and sometime less as soon as the leaf is come to its full growth which will be sometime sooner sometime later as the year is dryer or moister more fruitfull or less which when you perceive at the full ripeness set to cutting of it As soon as ever it is cut you Mills being prepared and great broad fleakes so many as may receive one Crop prepared and planted upon galleries or stories made with poles Fir alder or other wood whatsoever your Mill is usually known a large Wheel both in height and bredth and weigh doth the best it is a double wheel and the Tooth or ribs that cut the Woad are placed from one side of the Wheel to the other very thick wrought sharp and keen at the Edge and as soon as the Woad is cut and comes out of the field it is to be put into the Mill and ground one kilnfull after another as fast as may be the joyce of the leaf must be preserved in it and not lost by any means and when it is ground it is to be made in balls round about the bigness of a ball without any composition at all and then presently laid one by one upon the fleakes to dry and as soon as dryed which will be sooner or later as the season is they are to be taken down and laid together and more put in their places but because all Circumstances will be too tedious to discourse the work is a common work and very many wel versed therein I will rather advise my Reader to get a workman from the Woad-works which can carry it on artificially
Acre it hath been sold from 20 s. a pound to 5 l. a pound It is an excellent advantage and brings in at worst a saving bargain but it may possibly be worth 30 or 40 l. an Acre but if it come but to 7 or 8 l. it loseth not so I have given thee a brief story wherein I would have been more large but having lost my observations upon it which I took when I was upon the very Lands and received full satisfaction in every particular and member or branch thereof but as yet it hath not fell under my own experience therfore I give the heads as I remember as they were delivered unto me upon the place though I have forgot many of them to incourage to the work The Saffron Country is on one side and â—ook of Essex and some part of Suffolk and at Saffron Walden and betwixt that and Cambridge is very much of it in their common fields and truly these Lands are but of a middle worth I have seen as rich land again in many parts of England but it is as I believe loamy ground and of a little saddish nature it will require to be laid dry and sound and the land it self must be very sound wholsom Land CHAP. XXXIX Treats of the Plantation of Liquorish at large I Proceed to another Nationall business in the Plantation whereof we exceed all Nations and that is Liquorish our English Liquorish as wee call it not yet wrote of by any that I could ever see is far beyond the Spanish small dry Liquorish or any other As for the use of it most of you know but as to the profit advaÌ„tage the mystery of Planting of it but few understand fewer practise but that I may be as open and full in the discovery of it as I can in this short discourse I have to make I shal under these two or three heads formalize what I intend to speak 1. Shall be to discover the best land to bear it 2. The best way I can find practised to plant it 3. The profits and advantages of it The best Land to raise your Liquorish upon is your richest you can get or make your warmest you can find out the soundest and dryest that is possibly to be had of a very deep soyl you must dig and prepare your Land before you set and it must be digged three spades depth and two or three shovellings at the least laid as hollow light as may be you may have it digged out of naturall Land if it be very rich indeed that it will feed an Ox in a summer it is the best for eight pence a rod at London yea for seven pence and sometimes for six pence a rod forty rods make a rood which is a quarter of an Acre which comes to about 4 or 5 l. an acre this is the main charge of all for three year there is no more unless it be a little hoing which will off hand very fast I believe it will not cost above 20 s. an acre more all three yeares both in setting and all the dressings of it besides the sets and Land The sets being doubly trebly worth your money sets have been sold for 2 s. the hundred more sometimes are not worth above 1 s. a hundred but if your Land be not fresh old Land or extraordinary rich as rich as your best gardens are it must be made so with soyles warm Manures horse-dung is excellent to be intrenched into the Earth it both warms and lightens it and makes it very fit for this service About London is very seruiceable Lands for it so is on any dry soyl whatever where it is rich enough deep Holland in Lincolnshire must needs be very good many of the Marshes that are sandy and warm most excellent that which bears this well wil also bear your Madder-weed that rich commodity I hear that Liquorish grows naturally at VVorsop in Nottinghamshire and about Pomphret in Yorkshire so also I heare your sparrow-grass grows naturally at Moulton within a few miles of Spauldwin in Lincolnshire and so I proceed to my third particular Which is the best experimented way of planting of it Having digged and prepared your Land and a little raked and evened the same you may proceed to the Planting of it therein you must indeavour the procuring of the best sets you can and from the best and largest sort of Liquorish The best sets are your Crown sets or heads got from the very top of the root a little shived down be carefull of this of very sound Land for how soon soever you come to the water your Liquorish will check and run not one inch further and having procured your sets your ground being cast into beds of 4 foot broad all along your plantation from one end to another by a long line you may lay down a set at every foot along the line which line may have knots or thirds at every foot if you be so exact and then a man come with a tool made a little flattish if you will or roundish of the breadth or bigness of a good pickfork stail about half a yard long with a crutch at the over end and sharp at the neather and that thrust into the ground it being made of wood or iron but if flat an iron one will do best and open the hole well and put in the set and close a little mould to it and so you may overrun an acre very quickly in the setting of it and if it should prove a very dry time you must water your sets wo or three daies at first untill you see they have recoved their withered and wanness and then the first year you may Plant your garden with Onions Reddishe or any sallet herb or any thing that roots not downward and I am confident it will be better too because it will prevent some weeding and for the second it must be hoed and kept from weeds too and a little the third but one thing be very curious off in the taking up and sudden setting thy sets as soon as took up set again but if you fetch from far then as soon as taken up put a little mould and post them away by horse back and get them into the ground as soon as possibly the delay of setting spoiles many thousand sets The seasons of planting is in the month of Feb. and March You may the secoud year take some sets from your own stock but be very curious thereof but the third year you may take what you please and in the taking of the Liquorish up the best season for which is in November and December then there runs from every master root a runner which runs along the over part of the ground which hath a little sprouts and roots or sciences which will yeeld excellent sets if they be cut 3 or four of them in every set which
good husbandry dividing quicksetting and laying dry and sound their land and gardening some and planting others with kernels of all sorts of fruits and all sorts of woods and sets and trees have brought many plots some containing five or six acres some to ten or twelve and some to twenty or thirty acres in one plot to that improvement that they have made twenty pound an acre yea if I should say forty or fifty pound I should finde sufficient testimony to the truth hereof and all this while but in preparation for a plantation too their young trees being not come yet to beare nor to shade the land and then they lay it downe to grasse but say the land was worth twenty shillings an acre and some is and very much worth more which is so much better it will prosper and so much lesse cost need bee bestowed and yet by all will be made good the improvement promised These Orchards many of them are worth to grasse forty fifty or three pound per acre and so set their fruite will seldome yeeld them so little as double or treble the worth of their grasse many times five or six fold yea possibly ten fold and what is this towards the making good my improvement promised If this land was not worth above six or ten shillings an acre as very much was not then it is fourfold doubled in the grazing and if it treble in the fruit then there is sixteenfold and if it come up to sixfold in the fruit then there is two and thirty fold I will go no higher but I might and many doe and will the cost bestowed for the two three or four first yeares may be was three or foure pound an Acre may be five pound but then the Garden fruits which they raised upon them the sets the grafts the trees and fruite they raise upon it may bee possibly worth as much more as it is worth when it comes to be laid down to grasse but then it costs no more then mowing their grasse and gathering their fruit and yet during the flourishing condition of this Orchard it shall hold forth the improvement aforesaid Object But some will say this may be true in some few Acres and by some few excelling husbands but in very few persons and upon fâ—wer lands Answ. If any why strive not others after the same pitch why runne not others to the same mark if one Acre why not two if there be one so good a husband why imitate wee not him wee know one man may have as good meanes to the same end as another If one Tradesman get an excellent commodity or attain to an excellent mystery in his Trade do not all men study it thirst after it and endeavour it and may gain it Object You will say our land is not so good there is little such and most lands in England are not for that use and in some Countries little or none at all Answ. To which I answer neither was theirs as good or knowne to bee so good and that is all one untill they made the experiment It is but very few ages since these Countries have been so famous every age hath exceedingly improved and this very last age as it were almost doubled what former ages came to and truly when you have made the same experience you will finde your Land as good and by good husbandry with a strong resolution to the same end will bring forth the accomplishment of the same fruit and so I shall proceed to an answer of the second part of the objection which is there is little such land or little fit land for this use in many Counties in England which brings mee to my second particular which is to shew that there is land as well in all Countries and Counties as those lands of Kent Essex Surry c. and very much in many where is no improvement at all made thereon and that I thus demonstrate by inquiring into the nature and qualifications of these lands and these lands are many of them exceeding dry sound warme lands some perfect sand some gravelly some of a very shallow mould not above halfe a spades pitch before you come to hunger and barrennesse some exceeding stony some of them are upon a very rich soyle as by the Marshes sides some of them are upon a cold spewing wet clayey land but made rich and warme by soyle and husbandry and some upon a perfect clay cold and barren and yet upon them all you have exceeding great advances as aforesaid And that there is some such natured lands in all Countries and in some all these natured lands directly no man will deny and also meanes and soyles to inrich them though not so much but yet I am sure many times more then is improved to so good an advantage and more may be made and gained to inrich them if wee grow industrious And now that I have proved there is such natured lands what remaines to cleare the full demonstration but that as great advancement may bee made in those Countries as in these Why this remaines that they are not under so warme a Climate as those Lands are which is true and this is all that can be said to which I answer 1. Ans. That the climate is much to the drawing forth these fruits and especially to the drawing them forth so early but yet not sufficient excuse to hinder the work for then why should Glocester-shire Worcester-shire and Hereford-stire be so famous I am confident they are as natural and as fruitfull this way as these Countries are only I beleive they are not so quick for sale nor so early ripe may be by a fortnight of dayes which is nothing And the climate is as cold in these Countries as in almost any except two or three of the Northern Countries in which Countries are very much good fruits and many good Orchards too and why not more I know not I doe confess Cherries grow upward more rich early and more profitably then in other parts yet Worcester-shire comes near them but what if they come not up so high they may come up high enough and wee see they will grow well and to good profit in other parts as well as here But say there was not a cherry growing in any of those parts I should not much matter they being only for delight and pleasure yet if good Peares for Perry and Aples for Syder would prosper well which I am confident they would if industriously experimented which would be for the great supply of the poor the whole Countrie for every Town House almost hath an Orchard bigger or lesser that doe and will bear both Apples and Peares of all sorts whatsoever and all Countries have Lands naturall therefore as well as these where there is so great improvements made and therefore I know neither nature nor reason against the same nor nothing else
Willow Planted on Boggy Lands may be worth How to thick Woods that grow too thiâ— A president of a wood thickned Elm plants Sicamore plants Land as well imployed by planting wood as any way A president of 50. years growth of Ash. Oak plants A president for Nurseries of Wood. How to plant for Timber Open loose land the best for any wood An Oak above 40 yards in Timber Another ten yards thicknes Beech wood the use and fruit The Elm described How to raise Elm-plants The use of the Elm. The description of the Ash. The use of the Ash. Season for the Ash its selling A president of Ash his growth and advantage The best sets c. The best time to remove Ash. Birch The Walnuts The use and advantage of it The Willow Osier his use and how planted The Lime tree Causes why the Reader digest not the Discourse The Autâ—ors promise to mend The author clear his endeavours are for publique good His book is but to draw thee to his chamber to tel thy fortune there Seed described Right seed is the best peece in the whole work Claver sowed but none came up The best is of our own growing I have heard of one that got above 2 bushels out of an Acre A new way of getting out the Clover forth of the husk Best time to sow Claver To know when t is full ripe When and how to get one the seed Yeelds much Milk and feeds fat Beef A great mistake about Claver Old land better for Claver than tillable How much seed soweâ—han Acre The lands most proper for the Clover A generall rule in Clavering The Annuall profit of Clover Grass Clover â—i's for corning and corning for clovering The description of St. Foyn The manner of sowing it La lucern Plough irons made very true The remedies of the ploughs abuses A description of the plain share The Coulter how best made The Dutch Coulter The best way for the tryall of a new plough Plough well clouted and irons sharp smooth kept Size your Horses or Oxen equal A good character of a good Plough-man Plough-beam Wheel plows described Plough-sheath Plough head The Turn-wrest plough The single wheel plough A president of land plowed for 5 s. an Acre plough and horses found The dutch coulter is appliable to any pure clean land The onely advantages for making the easiest going plough The description of the plain plough The benefit of a broad and short Wrest What ease and advantage this plough and the directions will afford The season of plowing for summer corn The season for plowing for winter corn A foot described as will go in hillaâ—ground A plow to cast down land A plow to set up land The particular use of many of the members of the wel regulated plough How to plow as it may yeild most mould How to plow as your lay your land most level How to set the double plough together The plough wiâ—h a harrow affixed Plough harrow seedsman and all in one ploughâ—o work all at one time The lasting plough that may endure many yeares Welde described The manner of sowing it at no cost How much soweth au acre When ripe How to use it What Improvement welde yeildeâ—h The best Land for Woad Pest known parts for Woad What price men will give for good Woad-land Woad prepares exceeding well for Corn The best Corn. How ploughed How much soweth an Acre What is costs an Acre weeding The joyce of the Woad must by carefully preserved Five or six Crops in one year of Woad Season for sowing VVoad When Woad is ripe The best Woad for use The way of seasonidg Woad How hot the Woad arise unâ—o in the couch The advantage of VVoâ—d what it yeelds an Acre The description of Madder The seasons of drawing the sets What ground is best and how to prepare it A rod of ground what worth setting At what distance and how to set them When to get sets of our own planting Madder planting formerly granâ—ee by Patent At Dedford by Greenwich is his Plantation Best Hop-land How a hop-garden should stand Best hop-sets and where to have them Signs of an unproveable hop How to make the hop-hills The very time to plant in The best manner of setting the sets How to pole them which poles are best Poles length The best sort of poling And spediest way And best season How to draw broken hop-poles How to lay the poles How to turne the hops to the pole One of the main things in the hop-yard is raising the hils At first suppress not one science How to heighten your hils When to break off the top of the hop bind When hops blow and bell and are ripe How to pull your hops Neatness about them is very good How to dress pruin the roots in Winter The charge of seâ—ting dressing hops How to dry hops The sign when they are dry enough The profits may be made of hops Best time for Saffron How to set Saffron Saffron as green as a leek all Winte How to pick Saffron How to dry Saffron The Saffron Country The best land for Liquorish The charge of workmanship Price of sets The place where best lands lye for this use How to set your Plants If dry water â—your sets Time of planting The Runuer yeelds good sets When taken up and when sold. The advantages thereof Best seed Time of sowing How much seed sowed upon an Acre When to cut it How to use it How much an Acre may bear The charge of an Acre A design to set all poore to workâ— and wel maintain them How to know the best hempseed Best hemp-land The quantity the time of sowing of it It must be fenced Times of getting it How much the statute requires in a bundle What seed is worth The best land for Hempe Fitâ—est flaex Land 3. l. given for slax Land The several persons that slax imployes How to raise the best flaxe Best flax seed An experiment of both sorts of seed The season for sowing flax The manner of watering of it The charge of the flax from the beginning till it come to the Market The flax and Hempe-trade not come to perfection What parts prove the improvements What Nurceries of young Trees may improve How land is improved to twentyfold by Orcharding One land may improve as wel as another Very much land may improve as well as that which is improved Object Answer 2. The natured lands upon which the chiefestfruits doe grow Answ. 3. Lands of the same nature may raise the same improvement Object The climate but a very smal hindrance Sloth and ignorance the greatest hindrance of improvement That Wines may be made in England feasibly Charges and hazards in gardening cuts the comb of its greatest hopes How Turnepâ— will help out the improvement though Markets fail How Turnep makes bread in a dear year How Hogs may be kept and fed with Turneps What Turnep seed sowes an Acre and how to order it throughout