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
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
Sluces c. and the maintenance of the same for preservation of this charge and for the moee easy working the Improvement Take a most exact Survey of thy Water not by thy Eye onely but by and with a true exact Water Levell which is an instrument though plain and easy yet rarely made nor used among us which shall be largely described among other Tools in the tenth Chapter then either begin at the over end or neather end of thy Land which thou pleasest if at the over end where the water first entreth into thy Land And by thy Levell discover and plot out where thy water will go along thy Land as thou goest downeward that so thou maiest lose no Land that will easily be brought under thy water Then cut out thy Master Trench or Water-course if thou pleasest to such a bigness as may contain all thy Land-floud especially to bring it within thy Land and so bring down thy whole Water-course together But the most certainest way is as soon as thou hast brought thy Water within thy Land upon the superficies of it then carry it along in a foot broad Trench or lesser all along thy Levell which Water will be a great help and a second and truer Levell than the other and in thy working of it thou shalt find all little enough too prevent too dead a Levell yet lose no Ground neither If thy Levell be too dead the lesser stream will follow thee so that a convenient descent must be minded also to give the water a fair and plausible passage or current all along And if thou discover in his lesser Trench any mistake or failing then thou mayest with more ease and less charge amend the same easily by going higher upon thy Land or lower towards the water stop up the same again for thy Trench need be no deeper than the thickness of thy over Turff and cut out a new and so thou mayst most certainly demonstrate where thy main work shall go without hazard which will be a great certainty and little loss This done thou mayest cut out thy water-course and be sure it be large enough to contain the whole Water thou needest or intendest and so thou have longitude or length of ground the Trench must be the broader not the deeper for a shallow Trench is best for this work And when thou hast brought it so far into thy land as thou hast any land to work upon thou mayst a little narrow thy Course as thou seest the quantity of thy land or water requires so far as thou wouldest have thy course float over all at once thou must cut thy trench narrower narrower all along to the neather end that so without stops and staies it may flow all along at once the Trench being narrower and narrower that Water that comes within the Trench when it is wider must needs be thrust out when the narrower cannot contain it for here is the true excellency of this sort of Trenches and thus should all thy floating Trenches bee made in every work As soon as thou hast brought thy water upon thy Land and turned it over or upon it then as aforesaid be sure thou take it off as speedy as possibly and so fail not to cut out thy work so as unless thy Land bee very sound and thy Land-floud very Rich thou must take it off the sooner by a deep drayning Trench therefore I prescribe thee no certain breadth betwixt floating and drayning Trenches but if thy Land is sounder and Dryer or lieth more Descending thou mayest let it run the broader and as the Land is Moyst Sad Rushey and Levell let it run the lesser breadth or compass And for thy drayning Trench it must bee made so deep that it goe to the bottom of the cold spewing moyst water that feeds the Flagg and Rush for the wideness of it use thine own liberty but bee sure to make it so wide as thou mayest goe to the bottom of it which must bee so low as any moysture lyeth which moysture usually lyeth under the over and second swarth of the Earth in some Gravell or Sand or else where some greater Stones are mixt with clay under which thou must go half one Spades graft deep at lest Yea suppose this corruption that feeds and nourisheth the Rush or Flagg should lie a yard or four foot deep to the bottom of it thou must go if ever thou wilt drain it to purpose or make the utmost advantage of either floating or draining without which thy water cannot have its kindly Operation for though the water fatten naturally yet still this Coldness and Moisture lies gnawing within and not being taken clean away it eats out what the Water fattens And this also I must desire thee seriously to observe that as soon as thy Water hath spent it self and the Earth or Grass hath exhausted and drawn out of the Water her strength and richness then how long soever it runs longer and further it prejudiceth and corrupts it by breeding the Rushes in abundance The water running trickling among the Grass and upon the Earth leaving her Thickness Soyl or Filth which I call Richness among the Grass and upon the Earth and it self runneth away into the drayning Trench and troubles thee no more and so the Goodness of the Water is as it were Ridled Screened and Strained out into the Land and the Leaness slideth away from thee which can never be done neither so speedily nor so purely by standing on Lakes or Pooles besides the loss of the Grazing which may be near as good in Winter as in Summer upon a good Land-flood or rich Waters CHAP. V. Shewes the cause of water its fruitfulness and the proper season of watering Lands A Rich Land-flood is ever the washing down of great Road wayes Common Fields under Tillage or else from great Towns Houses or Dunghills The riches whereof is unvaluable Consider the goodness of thy Water if thy Water be a rich Land-flood or a lusty gallant Stream it will run further and wider upon thy Land with life and fruitfulness If lean thin and onely from Springs and Herbs or green soard t is more barren and so will operate upon less Lands so that as I said before thou must well observe both Land and Waters suitableness and so increase the latitude or breadth of thy Land thou intendest to improve with that stream before it fall into his Drain Which Drain thou must dig or make straight down as it were by a Perpendicular plum-Line which will drain the best of all Or else thou mayest make thy Drain or Trench somewhat Taper viz Narrower and Narrower downwards which will keep open the best and continue longest and for the Widness of it that must be resolved both from the nature of the ground which if Sound and Dry will require the less but if Moist and Boggy the Greater and Deeper or else from the quantity of Water it is
Lands which are from under such a Capacity of floating with Water And are onely such as are covered with constant Water and Lakes or else the Boggy Miry Lands it self and have no River or Land-flood to be brought over them and the remedies being equally applicatory to both for the most part I will propose generall remedies I say that Drayning is an excellent and chiefest meanes for their Reducement and for the depth of such Draynes I cannot possibly bound because I have not time and opportunity to take in all circumstances therefore in generall thus Be sure thy Draines be such and so deep and so deep as thou hast a descent in the end thereof to take away all thy water from thy Drayn to the very bottom or else it is to no use at all for suppose thou make thy Drain as high as an house and canst not take thy water from it thy work is lost for look how low soever is thy lowest levell in thy Drain thou mayst drain thy water so low and not one haires breadth lower will it drain thy ground than theu hast a fall or desent to take it cleanly from thy Drain therefore be especially carefull herein and then if thou canst get a low descent from thence carry thy Drain upon thy Levell untill thou art assuredly got under that moysture mirinesse or water that either offends thy Bog or covers thy Land and goe one Spades graft deeper by all meanes or thereabouts and then thou needest not tye thy self precisely to a dead Levell but as thy ground riseth or as the moysture lyeth higher so mayst thou rise also so that thou keep one Spades graft as aforesaid under it and that thou mayst not fall herein observe that in Cold Rushy Land this moysture or cold hungry water is found beneath the first and second swarth of thy Land and then oft-times thou commest immediately unto a little Gravill or Stoniness in which this water is and sometimes below this in a hungry gravell and many times this Gravell or Stoniness lyeth lower as aforesaid but in Boggy Land it usually lyeth deeper than in Rushy but to the bottom where the spewing Spring lyeth thou must goe and one spades depth or graft beneath how deep soever it be if thou wilt drain thy Land to purpose I am forced to use Repetions of some things because of the suitableness of the things to which they are applyed as also because of the slowness of peoples Apprehensions of them as appeares by the non-practise of them the which were ever you see drayning and trenching you shal rarely find few or none of them wrought to the bottom And for the matter or Bogg-maker that is most easily discovered for sometimes it lyeth within two foot of the top of the ground and sometimes and very usually within three or four foot yet also some lye far deeper six eight or nine foot and all these are feazable to be wrought and the Bog to be discovered but not untill thou come past the black Earth or Turf which usually is two or three foot thick unto another sort of Earth and sometimes to old Wood and Trees I mean the proportion and form thereof but the nature is turned as soft and tender as the earth it self which have layen there no man knowes how long and then to a white Earth many times like Lime as the Tanner and white-Tawer takes out their Lime-pits and then to a Gravell or Sand where the water lyeth and then one Spades depth clearly under this which is indeed nothing else but a spring that would fain burst forth at some certain place which if it did clearly break out and run quick and lively as other Springs do thy Bog would dy but being held down by the power and weight of the Earth that opposeth the Spring which boyles and workes up into the Earth and as it were blowes it up and filleth the Earth with Wind as I may call it and makes it swell and rise like a Puf-ball as seldom or never you shall find any Bogg but it lyeth higher and rising from the adjacent Land to it so that I beleeve could you possibly light of the very place where the Spring naturally lyeth you need but open that very place to your Quick-spring and give it a clear vent and certainly your Bog would decay by reason whereof it hath so corrupted and swoln the Earth as a Dropsie doth the Body for if you observe the Mould it is very light and hollow and three foot square thereof is not above the weight of one sollid foot of naturall Earth Clay or Land whereby I conceive that how much soever this Mould is forced from the naturall weight or hardness of solid Earth or Clay so much it is corrupted swoln or increased and blown up and so much it must be taken down or let forth before ever it be reduced I therefore prescribe this direction viz. Go to the bottom of the Bog and there make a Trench in the sound ground or else in some old Ditch so low as thou verily conceivest thy self assuredly under the Levell of the Spring or spewing water and then carry up thy Trench into thy Bog straight through the middle of it one foot under that Spring or spewing water upon thy Levell unless it rise higher as many times the water or Spring riseth as the Land riseth and sometimes lyeth very levell unto the very head of thy Bog unto which thou must carry thy Drain or within two or three yards of the very head of it and then strike another Trench overthwart the very head both wayes from that middle Trench as far as thy Bog goeth all along to the very end of it still continuing one foot at least under the same and possibly this may work a strange change in the ground of it self without any more Trenching But for these common and many Trenches oft times crooked too that men usually make in their Boggy grounds some one foot some Two never having respect to the cause or matter that maketh the Bog to take that way I say away with them as a great piece of Folly lost labour and spoyl which I desire as well to preserve the Reader from as to put him upon any profitable Experiment for truly they do far more hurt than good destroy with their Trench and Earth cast out half their Land danger their Cattell and when the Trench is old it stoppeth more than it taketh away when it is new as to the destroying the Bog it doth just nothing onely take away a little water which falles from the heavens and weakens the Bog nothing at all and to the end it pretends is of no use for the cause thereof lyeth beneath and under the bottom of all their workes and so remaines as fruitfull to the Bog as before and more secure from reducement than if nothing was done at all upon it Or thus thou mayst work
it some what a more certain way but more chargable viz. After thou hast brought a Trench to the bottom of the Bog then cut a good Substantiall Trench about thy Bog I mean according to the form of thy Bog whether round square or long or three or four yards within thy Boggy ground for so far I do verily beleeve it will Drayn that which thou leavest without thy Trench at the depth aforesaid that is underneath the spring water round And when thou hast so done make one work or two just overthwart it upwards and downwards all under the matter of the Bog as is aforesaid and in one yeares patience through Gods blessing expect thy desired Issue and if it be in such a place as will occasion great danger to thy Cattell then having wrought thy Works and Draines as aforesaid all upon straight lines by all meanes prevent as many Angls Crookes and Turnings as is possible for those will but occasion stoppages of the water and filling up of Trenches and loss of ground and much more trouble than otherwise Then thou must take good green Faggots Willow Alder Elm or Thorn and lay in the bottom of thy works and then take thy Turf thou tookest up in the top of thy Trench and Plant upon them with the green Soard downwards and then fill up thy works levell again untill thou come to the bottom or neather end of thy work where thy Trench is so shallow that it will not indanger thy Cattell or rather take great Pibble stones or Flint stones and so fill up the bottom of thy Trench about fifteen Inches high and take thy Turf and plant it as aforesaid being cut very fit for the Trench as it may joyn close as it is laid down and then having covered it all over with Earrh and made it even as the other ground wait and expect a wonderfull effect through the blessing of God but if thou mayst without eminent danger leave thy workes open that is most certain of all I might make more particular Application of the premises to the drowned and covered parts of the Fens and Marshes in the next Chapter upon which they wil have such an Operation as to reduce them to perfect Pasture and to great profit and to all sorts of such natured Lands thou mayst apply them and save me much labour being the main meanes of Fen Drayning As for Sluces Flood-gates Waires and Dams are but secundary meanes and being the proper work of an Engineer or good Carpenter I shall say no more for brevity sake But if thou canst by any meanes make thy self capable of bringing any constant Stream or powerfull Land-flood and Water and constantly Flow over the same as in the former Chapter that will reduce it to a greater Advance and work the most certainest destruction to the Bog of all as I have before declared by Experience As I conceive the Bogs in many parts of the Nation were occasioned thus wherever is a Bog I am confident was formerly a Spring which Spring running and venting it self kept the Land round about it sound and dry as where most clear Springs are at this day but the said Spring stopping up either with leaves or Cattels treading or wood falling upon the same or other filth for I beleeve many or most parts of this Land was very woody in former Ages the Spring was stopped that it could not clearly vent and so being a Living water would not be suppressed or buried but swels and boyles up into Bogginess and so vents it self by little and little in a greater Compass of Land because it cannot break forth clear together in a lesser because of the pressure and weight of the Earth upon it and this is the most naturall cause thereof that I can gather And my Reason is this In many Bogs I will not say in all I have found great Pieces or Boughes or Bodies of Trees lying in the bottom of the Bog Four or Five foot deep in the full proportion of a Tree or Bough as it fell in but when you come to take it up you may cut it with your Spade just as as you do your Earth and it goes to Earth but how this should come so low and lye so deep and so familiarly in Lands of this nature and not as frequently upon sound Lands I cannot conceive otherwise than as aforesaid CHAP. VIII Answereth severall Objections made against the Probalities of so great Advance by Floating IT may be some will still object and say that these Affirmations are but Pretences no such Advantage or ease as is promised can possibly be perforwed But I say again many Gentlemen can witness the truth hereof Many Lands can shew it and if thou wilt not beleeve Relation beleeve thy eyes go and see he who prints my Book shall be inabled to direct thee where thou mayst see more than here is affirmed Again in many of the Wood-Land parts in this Nation as in Worcestershire VVarwickshire Staffordshire Shropshire and Wales-ward and Northward there are many more Improvements made upon coarse lands than is in other parts upon better Lands and the Improvements made in the Wood-land-parts speak out the truth hereof much whereof being most Barren of all lands is improved so high as that it is at present as rich as many parts of the Fieldon and fuller of wealthier Inhabitants I am confident more rich Farmers of lateyeares than when their lands were naturally more Rich and Fertile I give not all nor all sorts of Presidents of Improvements I could by far but onely a few here and there to quicken thy desires after them the Experimenting wherof will bring more to thee if not bring thee to them These things I know of my own knowledge Another he objects that it will breed the Rush the Flag and Mareblab and so this floating land shall be more prejudiciall than advantagious I answer its true possibly and easily it may at I have shewed before but be thou carefull of my directions consider thy Land if it be dry and sound and thy water if it be Fat and Rank and make the drayning Trench as afore directed and never fear it all the Difficulty is in the cold Land and Barren Water on which also observe punctually my Directions and I 'll warrant it Make thy Drain deep enough and not too far off thy Floating Course and water it with a good force of water and observe the seasons which are all the cold Winter when the Rush groweth not It must have warmth to exhale and draw it out and be sure to lay thy Land sound and dry by the Drayning Trench that it may drain under that Moysture Filth and Venom as aforesaid that maintaines them and then beleeve me or deny Scripture which I hope thou darest not as Bildad unto Iob. Can the Rush grow without Mire or the Flag without Water c. That Interrogation
which they are to be erected there to be discoursed and described and the common Engineers are very customarily used therto As to some good ingenious painfull Artist little can be added so that there remaines only that I advise to these two or three general directions First That you be very carefully observant of the power and way of the Seas working for although it is possible much Lands may be gained from the Sea yet it is not possible at all times to keep the same when it is gained therefore where-ever you see the Sea get or recover upon any Land be wary there rather study to stop the Sea there on the borders and to divert the force of it another way which will sometime more easily receive a check than at other times and places but if that be not stayable I should advise not to be too busy there but where the Sea loseth and Land increaseth there is a more probable opportunity and there I should rather pitch down my staff There is store of these Lands to be recovered so that I would not perswade any to streighten themselves with hazards and inconveniences when there is such a wide opportunity for the ingenious to improve both parts and purses on the borders of these Nations Secondly Be very carefull of placing your out-fals and water-gates in so convenient parts as may both be best for the firm draining of your Lands and for the firm founding of your Sluces and Water-gates both in relation to the Earth you plant them on and the force or strength of the water that lieth against them or accidentally through some fierce storm that may come upon them this hath been the overthrow of some gallant works and particular rules here cannot be discoursed but through so much tediousness as will tire thy patience which I must forbear Thirdly Be above measure studious about thy Imbankments that a foundation be so firmly laid to the bottom with such materialls as will hold out the triall therefore in every new work some triall would be made of all materials and therein thou must be steered by those the very place affords whether Stone Chalk Wood or Earth or all and the present experience upon the place will be a better Tutor than I can possibly for I much question whether the carriage of any of these far will answer the cost or hazards run therein Be sure your foundation be broad well ramm'd together and so raised with solid matter and workmanship a good height above the highest Tides and curiously turved or sodded on the Sea-side the better is your Turf the firmer is your work for if that it once begin to hole or break look to the main it is in danger and ever be sure your new works be made the highest because an overflowing upon an old work is not so dangerous as upon the new that it quickly and easily overthrows Lastly Be sure of ingenious and laborious workmen an idle slubberer will both deceive the work and Master study not so much cheap wages as to have your work well done for good wages carefull ingenious Overseers of the Labourers is an unvalued furtherance to the work some men have an excellent Genius that way will awe men more with their wise industrious oversight and skill in mens frame of Spirits and wise designing each man to his place and work that al of them shal be as members of the body co-adjutors to the whole one take it from another so as no work be done twice over nor one mans labour bear out another mans sloth but each be helpfull to another so as to advance the main I tell you this is a mystery and a man rightly qualified for this work is worth gold and very rarely to be found I have seen some Bayliffs intrusted herein stand telling a story while all his workmen have stood looking him in the face admiring him for his Rhetorick and this hath pleased him as well as their working many have an easie way of hindering work but few of furthering it and he is a rare man that can sort all his works so into each workmans hand as that it goes on to purpose confusion is through ignorance and sloth a good method or plat-form to advance each mans labour to the best furtherance of a work is difficult requires great ingenuity and laborious study I find it most difficult though I have had as large experience of it as most Englishmen yet cannot accomplish it but many times ran into confusion through mens rudeness and my want of each particular experience in each work the which I instance as a Rock for others to beware and prize and value a good Overseer whose countenance and conversation is such with workmen as will not onely awe and force them but his wise and loving demeanor will compel them to their utmost faithfulness a work in its geares will thrive exceedingly And so I have done at present with this particular till I have gained some more and new experiences and with this Chapter CHAP. X. The Tenth Chapter giveth directions to make and use certain Tooles or Instruments which shall much facilitate the Work ANd for thy further incouragement because Drayning and Trenching is found very chargable therfore in the third place I will discover certain Tooles or Instruments which shall make the work more facile and delightfull with which two workmen and indeed any Ingenious man many quickly attain a handiness and dexterousness therein that can well handle them And shall doe more than many common Labourers doe in one day with their ordinary Tooles and shall work more true and more suitable and commendable to the nature of this way of Improvement which Tooles are all very plain and simple without severall motions or divisions made onely for ease lightness and quickness not for Admiration or Confusion The first is a good Line about thirty two yards long made of the best Water-wrought Hemp and as big again as Whipcord upon a good Reel to wind it upon I prescribe this length because of drawing all Workes as near unto a strait Line as possible may be which length is of use in measuring your Work by the Pearch or Rod as you desire also and no more of this The second is a Water Levell about five foot long the longer the better but that it will be the far more unportatable but four foot an half wil do reasonable well which Instrument many have assayed and made some open with a Channel for the water to run all along upon a three inched Piece of Oak with sights placed at each end true to the water that is each sight of a just proportion from the waterâ— to direct the Levell but this lyeth so open to the Wind and is troublesome removing that it is not worth prescribing Others have used them of seven or eight foot long to be placed on two or three legs as the Surveyor placeth the plain Table
there would not be one foot of ground more lost but a double or treble Advantage raised upon it in few yeares and ever after with no other Husbandry continued but ever bring in double profit for the charge bestowed As in the cutting plashing scouring of the Hedges which payes his cost bestowed and sometimes double and treble and if it be a Hedge curiously preserved and cut just in his ripest season before it begin to die i' th' bottom and have in it either good store of great Wood or Fruit-Trees planted among the profits may arisâ— to much more than is here spoken of CHAP. XVII Wherein I proceed to a second sort of Land somewhat Inferiour to the former wherein is discoursed the destruction of the Rush Flag and Mare-blab altering the Coldness of Nature and the preventing the standing Winters Water and destroying Ant and Mole-hills c. All which are most incident to this second sort of Land THis which I call a second sort is our midling Land I delight in plainess and avoyd all Language darkning the plainest sense or whatsoever may occasion mysteriousness or confusion in the reading or practice so that this middle sort of Lands as aforesaid is all such Lands that are betwixt the value of twenty shillings per Acre and six shiliings eight pence per Acre which sort of Lands as they lye under a capacity of the greatest Improvement I have handled them at large in the foregoing Discourse especially under the four first Pieces of Improvement But as they lye under a Capacity of a moderate and less Improvement fall here to be discoursed and although I call it a moderate Improvement yet being well Husbandred according to the subsequent directions may produce a double increase and some far more and some less but in all a considerable advantage enough to encourage to the prosecution And possibly some of these Lands may be of the richest and first sort naturally but by some Improvidence or ill Husbandry being degenerate are faln under this second and that where the Rush either hard or soft prevaileth or else where the Land lyeth so flat cold and moyst that the Flag or Marâ—-blab thriveth I shall here onely apply one remedy for the removall of them all to avoid Tediousness which is most naturall thereto and cannot fail being punctually observed and that is a way all men use already though to little purpose which is to indeavour Drayning of the same as you shall see in most mens Lands both Pasture and Common â—ull of Trenches as they can hold to their great cost and loss of abundance of good Land devoured in the Trenches Heaps and banks they make and yet all is of little use the Rush as fruitfull and the Land as cold as formerly in comparison Therefore I shall advise far less Trenching and yet produce more soundness I say then as I have often said seek out the lowest part of thy Land and there make either a large Trench or good Ditch or be it but the old one well scoured up if there be one to such a Depth as may carry away that water or Corruption that feeds the Rush or Flag from every other upper Trench thou shalt see cause to make and so ascend to any part of thy Land where these offences are carrying with thee one Master Trench to receive all thy less Draines along with thee and there make a Drain yea all thy Draines and Trenches so deep for I prescribe no certain depth as to that Cold spewing water that lyeth at the bottom of the Rush or Flag which alway either lyeth in a Vein of Sand and Gravell mixed or Gravell or Clay and stones mixed as aforesaid and thence will issue a little water especially making thy Trench half a foot or one Foot deeper into which will soak the Rushes food which being laid Dry and Drayned away cannot grow but needs dye and wither It is impossible without going to the bottome to do any good Our own experience shews it and so the depth may be two Spades graâ—t or more however to the bottom thou must go and then one Trench shall do as much good as twenty alwaies curiously observing that thy Trenches run in the lowest part of thy Ground and through the Coldest and most quealiest parts of thy Lands and for the manner of making the same and further Direction therin I shall refer thee back unto the second Piece the seventh Chapter where I have spoken something to most of the aforesaid Passages But if thy Land lyes upon a Flat or upon a Levell and have many great wide Balks of which there wil be no end of Trenching or Drayning I must then assure thee it is to little purpose yet art not left remediless for this insuing direction will not fail and will bring profit with it to pay for curing also which is a moderate Plowing Ridging all thy Balks raising and Landing all thy Flats gaining them as high as possibly thou canst Plow all and leave none and do this three yeares together and observe such former Directions as are contained in the thirteenth fourteenth and fifteenth Chapters in the third Piece of Improvement And by the blessing of God expect the issue promised It will lay Land sound and dry more warm and healthfull than formerly destroy the Rush and many other Annoyances beyond Expectation I have been forced to be more large to speak twice to one thing because of the suitableness thereof unto these Lands but especially because I cannot speak enough to make some to understand it nor others to set upon the Practise and more especially because the Reader may miss the reading of it in the former part unless he take the paines as few do deliberately to read the whole Therefore if thou wilt forgive this fault I le mend the next As for the Mole-hils so great an Enemy to the Husbandman and Grazier there is so much Experience made for their Destruction that almost every Ingenuous man is grown a Moal-catcher in many parts and that is a certain way yet in many parts men are Slothful that because all their Neighbours wil not kil them therfore they wil not so they suffer their Land one third part to be turned up There is a Law to compell men to Ring their Swine to prevent their Rooting it were more advantage to the CoÌ„mon-Weal a severe Law were made to Compell all men to keep the Moal from Rooting for he destroyes abundance of Grass he covers with the Mould and Corn he throws up by the Roots which utterly perisheth Spoyls the Mâ—wers work and Tools and raiseth Balks in Meads and Pastures besides the work he makes the Husbandman to spread some of them the Cost whereof were it but bestowed in Moal-killing would prevent the aforesaid losses And although I can make no new Addition to the Moales Destruction there being so many Artists with the Moalâ—staff Tines and
for Improvement by Liming and by all the Subsequent Compositions All old Resty Land that hath not been Tilled of late although it be coarse of it own nature and yeeld little Fruit yet by Plowing according to former directions all Advantages observed for three or four Crops which I fear not but the heart and strength thereof will bear it out without Prejudice I have known Six or Seven Crops taken of Land not worth above five shillings or six shillings an Acre and it very little the worse as generally all the wood-Wood-Lands are apt to run to Moss and Fearn Goss and Broom and to be so extremely over-run therwith that it bears nothing else and if they be not tilled according to that ancient Principle all Husban-men retain every ten or fifteen years they will runn into these Extremes so far as that they will be of little use so all other Lands of a better nature subject to these Extremes no better way can possibly be than Moderate Tillage according to the former rules prescribed And in thy Tillage are these special Opportunities to Improve it either by Liming Marling Sanding Earthing Mudding Snayl-codding Mucking Chalking Pidgeons-Dung Hens-Dung Hogs-Dung or by any other means as some by Rags some by coarse Wool by Pitch Markes and Tarry Stuff any Oyly Stuff Salt and many things more yea indeed any thing almost that hath any Liquidness Foulness Saltness or good Moysture in it is very naturall Inrichment to almost any sort of Land all which as to all sorts of Land they are of an exceeding Mellorating nature and of these more particularly And first for Liming it is of most excellent use yea so great that whole Countries and many Countles that were naturally as Barren as any in this Nation had formerly within less than half an Age supply with Corn out of the Fieldon Corn-Country and now is and long hath been ready to supply them and doth and hath brought their Land into such a Posture for bearing all sorts of Corn that upon Land not worth above one or two shillings an Acre they will raise well Husbanded with Lime as good Wheat Barley and White and Gray Pease as England yeelds yea they wil take a parcell of Land from off a Lingy Heath or Common not worth the having nay many will not have it to Husbandry it and will raise most gallant Corn that naturally is so Barren worth five or six pound an Acre And though some object it is good for the Father but bad for the Son I answer so are all Extremes whatsoever that is to Plow it after Liming so long as is either any spirit left in the Lime or heart in the Land or it will bear any sort of Corn or Grain it will ruin it for Posterity But if that after Liming men would but study Moderation in their Tillage anid not because the Land yeelds such abundance of Corn Plow or Till it so long as it will carry Corn no nor so long as it will carry good Corn But if men would after good Liming take three four or five Crops and then lay down their Lands to Graze it would not be the least prejudice or if upon the laying of it down men would but indifferently Manure it or else upon the last Crop you intend to Sow Dung it well before Sowing and lay it down upon the Rye or Wheat Stubble it would produce a sweet Turf and I am confident prove excellent Pasture as good again as it was before but if after it is layd down you would Manure it once again a little Manure now will produce more fruit than as much more upon the old Soard it would be warrished for ever Many men have had ten Crops of gallant Corn after one substantiall Liming some more upon very reasonable Land of about six shillings eight pence an Acre some Land worth a little more but more Land less worth and some upon Land not worth above one or two shillings an Acre have got many gallant Crops upon a Liming as aforesaid some men have had and received so much profit upon their Lands upon once Liming as hath payd the purchase of their Lands I my self had great Advance thereby yet I lived twenty miles from Lime and fetched it so far by Wagon to lay upon my Lands and so not capable to make like Advantage as other Borderers The Land naturall and suitable for Lime is your light and sandy Land and mixed sound Earth so also is your Gravell but not so good and your wet and cold Gravell is the worst except your cold hungry Clay which is worst of all but all mixed Lands whatever are very good As for your Lime it is not of a hot burning nature as most men conceive and do strongly believe and many have wrote 't is true it is of a wasting burning and consuming nature before or in the slacking or melting of it and may be possibly in the meal or spirit of it but in the use of it and working it into and with the Land and Earth and in the production of the fruit it seems appeares to be Coldest and most sadning of Land of any Soyl whatsoever and that for these Reasons 1. Because of it self it is a heavy and weighty substance and sinkes deep and loseth it self sooner than any Soyl whatsoever if you be not very carefull in the keeping of it up and rasing of it you will lose it before you are aware of it or can suspect it 2. Because it so alters your lightest Ry Land that though it be naturally Sandy and Gravelly that it never before would bear any thing but Ry or Oates yet by one good Liming it will be reduced to bear as good Lammas or Red straw Wheat with Barley and Pease as your strong clay Land 3. Were it of so hot a nature then it would have the best operation upon your coldest wettest spewing Land upon which it hath none and all Experience shews the contrary As I remember about twelve or fourteen quarters of Lime will very wel Lime an Acre you may also over-Lime it as well as under-Lime it Also a mixture of Lime Manure and Soyl together is very excellent especially for a few Crops and so lay down to Graze I conceive is best but by any means Till not long for I say it is possible the Land may yeeld Corn being so exceedingly in Tillage and so well wrought as long almost as any Earth is left in it I have seen many parts Tilled so long as there hath been little lest but small Stones Flints and Pebles A mad Cmstome fly from it your Lime will sink downwards exceedingly use all means possible to keep it as much aloft as you can else you lose it and the benefit of it and remember it whatever you forget and then you may plow and work your Land as you do with any other Soyl. CHAP. XXI Sheweth the nature
it is of excellent fruitfulness and so all Wales-ward borders so rich as that they carry it many miles on Horse-back unto their Lands and make such vast Improvements as to raising Corn and Grass also as is incredulous Now were it on the Northern Eastern or Western Coasts as rich as it is upon the Southern Coast as it may be for any contrary experience I have had I could not believe the people to be so Dronish as they are in some parts thereof but that they would Drain out that Sweetness to their Lands as would cost but little or nothing but their Labour However I must absolutely say there must needs be great heart and fruitfulness in these Sands also because the Richness of the Sands is from the fat or filth the Sea doth gather in by all Land-floods and Streames that bring it from the Lands and also what the Tide fetches in dayly from the Shores and from that fat and brackish nature in it self and from the Fish and other creatures and thousands of other matters that putrifie in the Sea all which the waters Casts to Shore and purgeth forth of it self and leaves in the Sands thereof while it self is clear and pure And now being discoursing thereof give me leave to let you know the vertue and excellency the Sea may yeeld as from Sea-Weeds also which Cornwell and Devonshire and many other parts make great Improvement of for the Soyling and Manuring of their Land and that to very great advantage also and further toward the Inriching of the Land as from Fish of any sort which is so fruitfull for the Land that in many parts of the world they Dung their Lands therewith but here with us it yeelding more Advantage for Food to the relief of mans nature than unto the Earth I 'll say no more unless any Capacity fall in the dead of putrified Fish which is no other use than to this purpose A good Advantage might be made unto the Land thereof as I said before any Liquid Brackish-fat Greasie-matter and any thing that comes from or is the fleshy matter of the creature whether it be by Sea or Land hath a secret operation in it to the Earths fruitfulness Yea the very Urine of man is very excellent and of all beasts very fruitfull and very rich would be of more Accompt if men knew the worth of it I have read of some that have done too strange things therewith to report but most certainly 't is worth labour to preserve it with most exactness There is yet another Opportunity out of many of your great Rivers and is from a Mud or Sludg that lyeth frequently in deep Rivers which is very soft full of Eyes and Wrinckles and little Shels which is very rich yea so rich that in some parts many men get gallant Livings onely by taking it up out of the Rivers and selling it again by the Load One sort whereof they sell for one shilling two pence per Load and another sort they sell for two shillings four pence a Load at the Rivers side which men fetch twenty Miles an end for the Inriching of their Land for Corn and Grass One Load going as far as three Load of the best Horse or Cow-dung that can be made They call it Snayl-Cod and it hath in it many Snayles and Sheâ—s which is conceived occasioneth the Fatness of it The great Experience of this Piece is made upon that part of the River Thames which runs from Oxford and Reading down to Brainford and if my information fail not which I conceive I have from as good a hand a Gentleman full of great Experiences in Husbandry Improvements as hath not many Fellowes The Lord Cottington drawing part of the River through his Park at Hanworth hath cut in the same River many Out-lets or Ponds somewhat deeper than the River on purpose to receive the same from out of which is usually taken up great store of Mud for the Advance of the Upper Lands but whether this be that richest Snayl-Cod I cannot say but beleive it is very good but upwards as high as Cole-Brook in that River it lyeth plentifully all which not failing under mine own Experience I can say little more unto for present neither for the seasons of applying it unto the Land nor the manner of working the Land to it I dare not prescribe Only hence I conclude there may as well be the same opportunity in most Rivers of the Nation which is a most unutterable Advantage But I can say there is in most if not in all Rivers a very good Rich Mud of great Fruitfulness which were it more sought after would work on more Experiments and produce Advantage unexpected it costing nothing but labour getting nor prejudiceth any but profit to all by clearing the Rivers and great worth and vertue it must needs have in it being the Soyl of the Pastures and Fields common Streets Wayes Yards and Dung-hils all collected by the Flood and drawn thither where it concenters into Shelves and Mines as I may so call it and remanines for ever as an undiscovered Advantage where no use is made of it but hereof more if God give opportunity to the Author of Experimenting both this and others of the same nature to the utmost Advancement of it otherwise and in the mean while inquire it out they self CHAP. XXIII Treateth of the use and nature of Chalk Mud of Pooles Pidgeons and Swines Dung and other Soyles and Manures therein contained AS for Chalk Sir Francis Bacon affirms it to be of an over-heating nature to the Land and is best for Cold Moyst Land but as it appears to me in Hartfordshire and other parts thereabout there are great Improvements to be made upon Barren Gravelly Flinty Lands it hath great Fruitfulness in it but not having faln under my own Experience I dare affirm little therein onely advise any that have opportunity therein to be well resolved of the Fruitfulness of the said Chalk or of the nature of the said Lands for there is some Chalk though not very much thereof that is of so churlish a binding nature that it will so sodder and bind and hold the Water upon the top of the Earth so long till it destroy the Corn nor work a sterility in the Earth that neither Corn or Ground shall yeeld but little fruit but there is a Chalk in thousand places of great fruitfulness for Improvement And I also conceive that Chalk Earth and Manure mixed together makes an admirable sure and naturall fruitfull composition for almost any sort of Lands and is a very Excellent Unfallible Remedy against Barrenness and raiseth Corn in abundance inricheth it also for Grazing when you lay it down many great Countries in this Nation are under this capacity Also the Mud of old standing Pooles and Ditches the shovelling of Streets and Yards and Highwaies the Overâ—warths of Common Lanes
land or plowing any flat land almost any plough wil doe well and so your broad-breasted ploughs will turn over a great furrow though your Shield-board have little compass but as to the setting up a Land or ridging it as most call it I would have a narrow brested plough with an exceeding whelming compassed Shield-board increasing both in the breast by small degrees and in the compass of the Shield-board with a very broad and short Wrest which adds one or two degrees of cast or compass to the Shield board for in this work you will most apparently see the ease and advantage thereof The Coulter having first done his office by going before and dividing out the furrow The Share his in cutting it up clear and raising it from the solid Land The breast of the Shield-board takes it and gives it a cast and turn that it is ready to fall The Wrest keeps its furrows breadth for the horses easie going and not suffer the furrow to drop short of its true place but least it should stand an edge The Heel or hinder end of the Shield-board comes being longer than the Wrest and standing as it were overlooking to see what it will leave and like a Ladies tryal gives the Furrow a sweep or a good check and bids it lye there in its proper place and not stand upon the edge And thus each member having done his office one taking it from another regularly must needs admit of the greatest ease A Saddle-tree is made of many peeces and some compass one way and some another but all to the true compass and easiness of the horse-back so a plough it might be made of fewer parts and lesser compass but that sewer will not give the true compass or cast of it and deliver his furrow upon the best advantage As for your ordinary seasons of plowing your Land being in good Tillage any well ordered and truly compassed plough will do you may help your self sufficiently in the making of your irons if you would have the edge of your lying furrow lye up higher which will yeeld most mould then set your Share-phin the shallower and set your plough the broader and hold it the more ashore the Plough-man going upon the Land and it will lay it with a sharp edge which is a gallant posture for almost any Land especially for the lay Turf beyond compare But if you would have you land lie most even and flat then set the Phin of your Share deeper or holding as some call it set your plough the narrower the holder alway alway going in the furrow and the Shield-board end will so humble it as you may lay it upon a levell this is best for land of which you will make a fallow or cut and burn the Turf or for land you intend to lay flat to grase If the furrow should be all at once turned at the very breast then it would go just as if you would put a Mold to root with her breech forward which plough I have seen but how the furrow would lie I know not nor well what strength to draw it but then there need neither be use of the hinder part of the Shield-board nor Wrest neither or if you would have it cast all in the Shield-board as some do that make no Wrest at all then it will either not clear up the furrow well set the furrow upon an edge or else the hinder end of the sheild board must whelm beyond all president or rule or if you would have it made so thin in the breast as to cut through like a knife and turn nothing till it come to the midst of the Shield-board and end of the Wrest and Shield-board then there it gives too sudden a check too and causeth the earth to choak and mouther upon the Breast board that it will not slip away with ease so that as I said before a medium in all each member doing its particular office preserves the health and comfort of the body These things and many more which might be ncessary I will forbear to speak to are accounted niceties among many the knowledge whereof hath cost me much and therefore am able to affirm that the very mystery of Ploughmanship lyeth upon the knowledge and practice of them and so I proceed to the double plough and the description thereof CHAP. XXXIII Holds forth a description of a double Plough carrying two Fuorows at once and both proportionable to a Furrow one ordinary plough shall carry With a plow that shall both plough and Harraw both at the same time and how to make a plough last a dozen years THe double plough shall be as plain as may be it shall consist of one long Beam of an ordinary length and another short one little above half the length of the other The first plough may be made up compleat in all the members thereof according to the last preceding description of the plain plough except the handles which may be very short only so long as may receive the Beam with the Land-handle and place the Shield-board on the furrow side which may be done without any but a round staff from the Beam to the Shield-board which handles excepted it is one compleat plough in all particulars The hinder end of the Beam is to be left a little stronger because of fastening the other beam firmly thereunto and then I proceed to the making of the hindermost Plough which must be made in all the members and branches like the other except the beam cutt off about three inches before the Coulter-hole and the handles of this at length and strength as an ordinary strong plough is made just according to the pattern of the plain plough Which being done and the handles upon the last plough you must set to the placing of it in his place which I discover thus the first plough standing in its working posture the other plough with is the handles to it to be affixed on the nearer side or left-hand one furrow breadth wider than the other just in the very same posture both for depth and breadth as the other doth and so held off from the first ploughs beam by alining or filling of wood just that substance as may continue it firm and fast to a just furrow and there drawn close and firm to that Master-beam with two small iron boults and a broad float or two of wood all which may be so keyed and cramped up that it may be as one solid beam and so move as the first moves either for height or depth which it must needs do and this I conceive may be best used with a plough-foot to guide the depth of it unless you place a wheel to that foremost beam but not in a false beam because I have not experience of applying this doubleness to those deep pitched ploughs but in the end of that beam you may have as good a mortess as your beam
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
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
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
for the Dammage To which if your Honours please to add but one thing more to give your best incouragements to all ingenious honest-hearts some such there are that have more within them than they can express and many such you need and the Common-wealth more whom while you are carefull to countenance from Hucksters and Impostors God will either keep you or inable you to discover but if any one can make A clear discovery of any new Invention for the advance of Lands Trade or Merchandize If your Honours please to confirm it to him for a season to reinburse himself a little it being unconceivable what some Ingenuous men run themselves out herein I cannot see the least Prejudice to any but a great incouragement to all nor can I have the least glance homeward though plain dealing be a jewell I finding my poor plain principles will never reach the honour of an intire discovery if I can either draw any thing to life out of the deep judgements or opinion of the more learned and have out any thing to a profitable experiment from my own practice and hereby gain opportunity to cast it as a Freewill Offering into the Common Wealths Treasury as the best and all I have to give is my utmost Emulation All which humble Proposals though Unbeseeming me to present yet a hope will not be thought Unworthy the grave and serious Consideration of Your Honours Wisedome as being so much conducing to Publique Welfare in which you are all ingaged to whom in this your Publique Welfare in which you are all ingaged to whom in this your publique relation I have said so much as I must humbly beg your Honours pardon and shall say no more because in the succeeding Epistles your particular advantages will be cleared and in the discourse at large your selves discovered to be as much discovered to be as much concerned and as capeable in the common-wealths advantage of as great if not greater Improvement upon all your own particular Estates as any which I leave before you untill the fittest season for your Lordships Consideration and actings as may seem to you most conducing to the good of all Concernments The All-wise God guid you in your great Affaires and make you gloriously Instrumentall to the prosperity of the Nations These are and shall be the uncessant and Earnest desires of Your Honours unworthiest-Servant VVALTER BLITH The Epistle to the Industrious READER I Shall here through thy good acceptance of my former mean Peece and earnest Importunity for the shaddowes or Pictures of those severall Tooles I offered and some other particâ—lar additionall waies of Improvement I promised to discover present them all unto thee if God shall please to assist it to the Compleatment wherein I shall a little by way of Reparation in some parts underbuild and some lean to or less necessary quite pull down of the old work and yet not deface it neither although by my hands it will never be uniformable onely may be wholsome and keep warm in Winter I shall therefore forbear to mention here any of the particulars therein handled but refer thee to the Book it self yet shall let them know besides some illustrations upon some of the former passages I shall clear my promise in all particulars as to the Land Improvement give in as clear as a discovery of the Tooles as I can in their severall figures And by way of Addition or as second part I shall hold forth how thou maiest make great and may be greater Improvements than have as yet been usually made in England upon thy Lands divers other waies As First in the Mystery of Planting all sorts of fruits with the speediest raising them to perfection Secondly I shall endeavour the facilitating the great weight and burthen of the Plough and give you the description of some formes most suitable unto ease and speed and hope thereby to take off a considerable strength and charge from the Husbandmans daily toil Thirdly give in the best experienced way of planting Hemp and Flax Rape and Cole-seed Oad Hops Saffron Licorish and some other of our English wealth Fourthly I shall endeavour to discover by what meanes we may possible raise the benefit of the Clover grasse St. Foine La-lucerne to the nearest president to France and Flanders for worth and quality as our English climate and best husbandly experience will admit And Lastly shall take boldness with my good friend M. Samuell Hartlips leave to paraphrase a little upon most of those deficiencies in husbandry which his friend charges us withall of which we have more than a good many and not so few as he speakes of and reduce so many of them that I have not spoke to already in my first Edition unto Practicall husbandry that fall under any of my experiences which though they bee but coarse and mean yet have been gained hardly by many toilsome tedious Iourneyes and very great and large expences and for the further light and help to the clear understanding of the Mystery of Improvement for so I call it and so it will be found when thou commest to the reall practise of it and may be more mysterious then thy princiciples customes and experience will reach unto I would direct thee a little to consider what hath been written in this kind by former gallant Instruments worthy of perpetuall honour Mr. Markham did excellently for his time so did Mr. Gouge in his Husbandry Mr. Tusser rimes out his experiences to good purpose and in all their bookes thou maist find out many things worth thy observation Sir Francis Bacons Naturall History is worthy high esteem it is full of rarities and true Philosophy Sir Hugh Plats Adams art revived is of good report I never yet could gain the sight of it though Mr Gabrell Plats discovery of hidden Treasure is very ingenuous and could'st thou but fathom his corn-setting Engine and clear it to thine own and others apprehensions it would be of excellent use without question but for the Country Farmer Translated out of French with some two or three other little books I can find but little Edification or Addition to our own English experiences what other men can find out of them I know not but leave to thee to discover but for the rest they have been a great and clear light to our Horizon yet among some of them one is worthy reprehension which is their large observations of season signes and planets forgetting God the maker of them and blesser of all things as if Seeds Herbs and Plants were to be sowen in the Moon or Planets which should they be observed they had need produce a double profit because not half of any would be sow'd or planted These times have let in so much light as will discover the vanity hereof But I must not forget Mr Samuell Hartlips peeces lately put forth as discoveries made to him of great advancements other Countries have made unto themselves thereby both which
in some particulars are naturall and suitable and experimentall in this Nation and of great advantage and merit high esteem from all and in other particulars I know not but why most of them also may be so applied and experimented too as to raise a good commendable and profitable advantage if they fall into the hands of ingennous husbandry I have therefore endeavoured to make my thoughts as legible as I can concerning them as well as all other the aforesaid though not to so good purpose as I should yet to provoke the more Ingenuous to correct them to their own advantage although I shall render my self subject to various opinions and though doggs bark I pass not if the Ingenuous Reader will not condemn before hearing my design shall not be to contend against former mistakes New discoveries will admit some of them but I shall perswade all men to a thorough triall of what they fiud most probably advantageous unto them And what by my self shall be here held forth are most of them experimented to thy hand at my proper cost and charge without the assistance of any other purse or person so visible that thy own eyes shall be thy Iudges and the rest shall be so clearly held forth by irrefragable demonstration and evident conviction of the places where and the persons by whom as thou needest not scruple it is time the world is full of conceits and phantasies nor can my self challenge immunity there from yea reason it self hath neer beguiled me till Experience hath concluded the question And there is a naughty generation of men that have brought an ill report upon Ingenuity through their pretences of great abilities in Enginreeship and great experience of raising and drawiug water floating lands oyling corn advising strange compositions for Seed and Land pretending great advantages by Chimistry yet have or could not bring forth the fruit of their great undertakings some through want of meanes to accomplish their work not wisely forecastiug at first what it would cost others indigent in their principles having seen or done something therefore thought they could doe all things and others through a base spirit of deceit and may be some for want of Patience to try the issue all which have brought a scandall upon Ingenuity Though I verily beleeve much may be done by many of the aforesaid meanes and more will be discovered by unthought of waies many men having so good inventions and very able to advise great things for the Common-wealth advantage yet may not be able of themselves to bring forth the same to publique experience such may and do deserve some publique incouragement A base privacy of Spirit hath so tainted us that few can vouchsafe publique service any publique honour nor publique Instruments a publique recompence Yet still look thou out to duty charge not Ingenuity as an innovation but act vigorously in thy station good husbandry is as the sinnews and marrow that holds together the joynts of common good all workmanship without Invention resolves it self into the workmans belly for though a new world hath been of late discovered yet there is not an occupation or trade of finding them nor are our English people very active in searching after them Study Improvements which though they may not be said to be either Father or Mother to Plenty yet it is the Midwife that facilitates the birth See what shiftings people make for livelihood how many severall callings doe men make and yet unmake the main The exereising these projections accompanied with a blessing if I may so call them without offence will open a way to the relief of thousands The Common-wealth is low and misery and penury will follow if we do not rouze the sluggard and post after Industry pursue all advantages of Improvement whatsoever It is a great argument to quicken me to the more speedy publication of this third Edition the rest of the new additions to it though I here hold forth most of my own experiences may be said to be a Trumpeter of my own praise yet if thou wilt but consider First that many of these particulars have been wrought as particular Rules or instructions to private friends as my own experiences to alter them will make so great an alteration in the whole as my present occasions wil not suffer And Secondly because I find so great abuse by some mens high affirmations proving but conjectures as hath brought Ingenuity under the scandal of projects new devises which men will scorn to deem them so when they are made experiments And thirdly because the subject though poor plain to be discoursed and great proof made thereof to good perfection yet when thou commest to the thorough practise thereof thou shalt find it so ambiguous as not withstanding all my allusions to my own experience will be little enough and then thou wilt excuse me And could the Authour have been thus supplied it is great odds whether this Peece had rendered it self unto the hazzard of acceptance or disgrace in so rude a manner I should have added much more but that the Epistle might have swelled into a volume and therefore chose rather to divide what I had to have spoke to the particular rankes of men whom it most concernes and so have distributed to each a portion as I conceived most suitable to work their spirits into a flexibleeness of practise and acceptance which if they set unto experimenting I hope they will raise such fruit thereby as to witness to or be Credentialls of my Frontispeece Although I indeavour so mainly to work my Improvements out of the Belly of the Earth yet am I neither of the Diggers mind nor shall I imitate their practice for though the poor are or ought to have advantage upon the Commons yet I question whether they as a society gathered together from all parts of the Nation could claim a right to any particular Common And for their prastice if there be not thousands of places more capable of Improvement than theirs and that by many easier waies and to far greater advantages I will lay down the Bucklers Nor shal I countenance the Level principles of Parity or Equality which they seem to urge from the begining till I see the heads of Families and Tribes Iudges and Governors Lords and Princes of whole Countries blotted out of the first or succeeding generation unless they bring us to the new Jerusalem or bring it down to us when we shall not need to trouble our selves about greater or lesser or any distinction of person places or estates any more but this Parity is all I endeavour to make the poor rich and the rich richer and all to live of the labour of their own hands And thus clearly demonstrating what I have premised I hold my self disobliged in all my promises except in this which will be fitter to be presented in a Volume of it self after some good proof given to the world of
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
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
Earth for Tillage and the other the Sheep in Pasturing and Grazing and so down to Noah he began to be an Husbandman and to Abrabhm and to Iacob and Esan and so along still till they came to the Goverment by Kings where Vzziah his commendation was beloved husbandry and many excellent things as if Husbandry were the most excellent as indeed it is here on Earth else ask Solomon the wisest the second Husbandman or Improver of the world and you shall find how out of the depth of his experience he cryes up diligence and activity in good Husbandry therefore sendeth us to the Pismire cryeth down the Sluggard and Sloathfull on whom commeth poverty as an armed man and extolls the diligent as fittest to converse with Kings whose very thoughts bring aboundance even of the diligent whose hand and heart are best to bear rule when the idle shall be under Tribute But to multiply more Scripture where all experience holds it so clear is but to prove a principle ungain-said I 'll say no more But for the usefulnesse of it it 's no lesse than the maintenance of our Lives Estates this Common-wealth and world and the Improvement or Advancement of the fruits and profits of the Earth by Ingenuity is little less than an addition of a new world for what is gained hereby either above the naturall fruitfulnesse of the Earth or else by reducement of that which is destroyed or impoverished from his naturall fruitfulness to greater fertillity is a clear augmentation or Addition to the Common-wealth All other callings proceeding hence the Earth being the very womb that beares all and the Mother that must nourish and maintain all The Merchant is a gallant servant to the State he fetches it from farre and t is a gallant Inrichment to this Nation but he purchaseth it from others who could make good profit of it if he buy it not raiseth it not out of nothing but parts with good Silver or Gold or some good commodity for it and is a great Common-Wealths advantage But this Merchant of Husbandry he raiseth it out of the Earth which otherwise would yeeld little unless this ingenuity fetch it out possibly never discovered to be there And what parts he with or at what rates purchaseth he it at Even onely with the wages of the labouring man whom he is bound both by the Law of God Nature and the Land to maintain who may be were he not maintained in work would cost as much to be maintained idly Oh! the Excellency Antiquity and Usefulness of it Improve the first and chiefest of thy Spirits on God in omnifying him above all and in all and the rest of thy wits and strength to serve thy station herein accompting it the second thing necessary a blessing being upon the head of him that tilleth Corn and the thoughts of the diligent bring abundance And so I proceed to the occasions of the Earths Barrennesse being the first Generall of my discourse First Generall Head CHAP. II. Sheweth forth the causes of Barrennesse upon all Lands THey are usually two 1 In Man himself 2 In the Land it self 1 In Man himself it was occasionally who by his sin procured a curse upon the Land even Barrennesse it self which by the sweat of his browes must be reduced if he will eat bread and so now is 2 In man naturally which is the main and capitall cause of all and is in him as I conceive the Cause of Causes which is Ignorance occasioning the prejudice men bear against Improvement especially that which is not of their own devising as all men naturally hate the true light of God because it discovers their darkness and is contrary to their light which is that of Nature and Reason onely the great enemies of Gospell Light So that parallel hereunto in some measure is the hatred that many bear to any new Ingenuous discovery of that which is not under their ken or common practise unlesse they can make it their own contrivement which ariseth from old Adams proud nature so rooted in ours that wherein we cannot ascribe unto our selves the praise we had rather lose the profit and so presently decry the same Saying This is no other but a principle of some young Brainsick or of one that would Monopolize more to his ten twenty or thirty yeares study and experience than our fathers and fore-fathers attained in all their practices or else some giddy head that will say more in half an hours discourse than he will make good proof of in an Age or else it is an experiment that will cost more than the profits thereof will countervail or else the Improvement is so great that they cannot possibly credit such Impossibilities with innumerable more such passages never putting forth their Mindes Hands or Purses to never so great and profitable an advantage like the Sluggard who will not plow but saith A Lion is in the way And so by feeding upon these or such like Prejudices they suffocate their own unspeakable advantage which they might accomplish with setting on the work and exercising a little patience in waiting for a through triall Although I le say it should be our rejoycing when any discovery is made chiefly of God then of that which shall concern the publique good be the instrument what he will and not ingaged therein for meer advantage only as too many have done holding forth specious Pretences of great wonders and the condition hath ever been great gain to the discoverer and more than the worth of the discovery many times hath been yet if the naked end be the Publick good be the discovery what it will or the Discoverer conceived neither of so deep a head nor of so long experience as others have been yea though thou conceive it a Project so chargeable that will not answer the cost bestowed or an advance so great as is not credible yet consider if he utter Reason Art or honestly and especially where he offereth experience for the proof thereof have thou patience to consider thereof if thou wilt not make triall of it his is the paines and if to any it is thy Gaines he hath but his labour for his travell The second Hindrance as in respect of the owner or occupier thereof is Idleness Improvidence and a slavish Custome of some old form or way of Husbandry exercised therein ever since they were born which begets so much the ill Husbandry of these dayes never affecting Ingenuity in any particulars of their Husbandry which is contrary to the mind and will of God in making us and the end wherefore we were made Good husbandry commanded and so experimented by God himself and charged on us therein and so commended by Solomon the wisest of men with Ingenuity and Activity to the putting out the utmost of our spirits in subordination to our spirituall calling in our particular callings to serve our
part of the Land by the severall casting up of much mould upon the Grass all which are hinderanees very great to the increase of the owner But for the Ant-hils if my opinion fail not excedingly they are grand enemies to the Grazier and Husbandmans advantage they destroy more than men observe I do beleeve that in some great Pastures in England there is one fourth part of the clear fruit of that Land lost by the multiplicity of them and little better in other pastures by the Molehills for although some are of opinion that the Ant-hills are little or no prejudice they are much mistaken and they will clearly bee convinced thereof if they will but either seriously consider the quantity of grass that groweth upon them or else consider the rareness of Cattle feeding upon them and then also consider the quantity of Ground and good Ground they cover will easily appear the great prejudice by them And that the sand and gravell washed from the Mole-hill is a great cause of rotting Sheep I absolutely affirm But thereto some may object they make more ground I Answer they do such as it is destroy a lesser good quantity of Land and add possibly a double bad but let them consider that this Addition is a great Substraction for if you weigh what I said before they bear little or no grass a little wild Time and speary harsh grass that Cattell eat not but a little thereof in case of hunger And I am sure they cover a great deal of good land Doe but really consider it upon experience made upon one Acre and thou shalt find that one Acre plain or bancked shall do as much service as an Acre and near an half shall do that is so hilly And again if you do not flatter your selves in your own judgments you will find that while the Land was plain if you consider the fruit it then yeelded and the Cattle it then maintained you will find there is no proportion between what it then kept and what it now maintaines for in my experience I find that old resty Land much overrun with these hills much degenerates and doth not nor hath of late yeares kept the former usuall Stock it kept before it grew so hilly and so old by near or about one fourth part which I am sure is as much or more advantage or clear profit the Grazier Breeder or Tenant need expect and although some will not acknowledge their experience herein yet many I am sure they find it by losing proof besides the danger of casting their Cattle and Sheep betwixt the Hills which oft destroyes them Another cause of Barrenness is Bogginess or Mieriness which turns all Lands both bad good and better into such a state of Barrenness unfruitfulness that it in some parts almost destroyes the Land and in other parts it wholly destroyes it and in some places makes it worse than nothing foâ— in stead of yeelding some fruit it not onely yeeldeth none but corrupts and prejudiceth other Lands on which it borders and it self most dangerous to mischieve the Goods or Chattell that do pasture upon the same and so may be accidentally many degrees worse than nothing Another cause of Barrenness is the Overflowing and constant abiding or resting of the waters of the Sea Fenns Rivers standing Lakes or Pools for be it fresh or salt water if it lye constantly upon it it assuredly destroyeth it although some more some less according to the deepness and barrenness of the water which covers it the soundness of the ground on which it lyeth so is the fruitfulness more or less perspicuous Some pretend strange causes which my plainess fathomes not nor much affects our Country Farmers now Yet one more I must not pass by that is such New Inventions for the Improving of Land discovered by some young Husband-man at experiences as I conceive the use wherof will rather destroy Land and wast a mans profits therupon than advance some such I have lately found in a little book called New Inventions for the Improving lands Printed for J. S. and sold at the sign of the Ball on Adling hill 1646. By which I fearing some willing to lay out themselvs in Husbandry experience should be beguiled by his so great overtures of Advantage I shall onely speak to two or three particulars and leave the rest to thy leisure to consider of First As to his manuring Plough manuring Wagon manuring Stone Corroding Harrow or Corroding Rakes which he pretends as Improvements so far as my shallow Principles will compass are likely to prove Impoverishers because while a man stands to dress his Land with fine mould in which is a little strength his Land decayes for want of good soyl or ranck muck which he may sooner lay on work into his Land by the old way than he may his fine earth by his new devised mysticall Instruments not one of them discovered neither but puzzle thy self thou mayst about the thoughts thereof and though thou givest twice as much for the book as it is worth for so thou must thou art but where thou wast at first And for his Seed-Barrâ—w could he but hold that forth to set Corn as he pretends it might be of some good use because certainly setting Corn could it be done with speed and at a certain depth and well covered would be worth discovering but of this I have as little hope and as low an esteem as of his other aforesaid Instruments because he holds it out to contain one Tunnell onely for his Seed which did it contain a hundred would more likely prove for in setting one seed at once no Engine can come near the hand-setting as I conceive And this I charge as a great prejudice and may be as a barrenning the land while men stand looking for great things they neglect their ordinary and old way of Hushandry far better Another cause of Barrenness which this Gentleman puts as a meanes of Improvement is the setting up or banking into a mans land the Rain water or cold Spring water and then trampling in dung by carting and cattell as he saith will raise and increase mire and dirt and so it will I must confess but what that mireand dirt is worth I know not the dung would be excellent good of it self but what it will be in this course of husbandry I not only much question but affirm that in all my experience that treading poching and holing land in winter was an exceeding great hinderance to Corn or Grass that Spring nay some Land I have known so poched by Cattels treading though fothered upon the same both in Kent and Essex and many other parts that it hath not recovered of divers years And what strength or vertue cold spring-water or rain-water hath to fatten any land I know not but wonder then how we have any barren land in England And to make good his Assertion he appeales to them that
float Land by Rivers whose practice clean confutes his opinion who study to drain their Land as fast as float it and the best and most skilfull of them will drown none at all unless for a day or two but drain as fast and draw off as fast as they bring it on And to prove his Tenent he affirms how advantageous it will be in keeping up the flouds by his inbankments to secure the Fens from drowning which is as likely as to keep the Sea from flowing after ebbing for he that will make banks to keep in Land-flouds may as well make a hedge to keep in the Cuckow and whereas he pretends hereby to raise new Springs that may be sure I am he will raise new Quick-sands and what good use they are of I am yet to learn And for Barren Land which he seemes so well skilled in the Improvement which he desires to purchase I will help him to enough if he will either be pleased to return a miâ—d answer if my plainess have offended him or else practically make good what he hath affirmed for that a man doth do is far more credible than that he affirmes he can do Many other causes of offences might be spoken unto but they are referred to a more proper Opportunity wherein they may receive a more suitable capacity of removall and will be dropped into the discourse at large as occasion most seasonably is administred And so I proceed to the Recoveries of the said Barrenness But before I descend to the particulars consider the severall sorts of Lands that will admit of Improvement Which I consider under two Generall Heads First all inclosed Severall Land whether Meadow or Pasture Secondly Common Lands whether Arable or Grazing First Severall inclosed Lands I divide into three sorts or else will rank them under three Heads 1 First shall be our worst sort of Lands of what nature soever they be from the value of one shilling per Acre to Ten shillings The Improvement whereof will fall under most of the six particular Pieces it being capable of most and greatest Improvement 2 Secondly is our middle sorts of Lands from the value of Ten shillings per Acre unto Twenty which falls naturally under the third Piece or way of Improvement yet is capable oft times to fall under some or most of the other Pieces also 3 Third shall be our richest Land from Twenty shillings per Acre to forty and from forty to three or four Pounds an Acre some of this sort will admit of very little or no Improvement having all Naturall and Artificiall experiments already made upon it but some others of this richer sort will admit of a very considerable Improvement and is principally discovered under the sixt Piece Neither can I say that all Lands without exception of the two former sorts may be Improved For possibly and out of question very much is Improved already and others may lie so void of any capacity of Improvement that either there may be none at all or else none that will raise such Improvements as will well and sufficiently requite the charge and cost bestowed but comparatively not much of this in England And my design is principally to hold onely forth possbilities of Improving at a far inferiour charge to the cost bestowed and the Improvement made from such materialls as generally are lost or little or no whit practised in most parts of the Land The second Generall are our common Lands whether errable constantly unde Tillage such as are our common fields all the fieldon or field Land throughout the Nation of which there may be three sorts also Bad Better Best of all and all and every part thereof may be very much and manifoldly advanced under some or all of the aforesaid Pieces or else whether it be Commons or Commune of Pastures upon those great and vast Commons called Heaths Forrests Moores Marshes Meades or whatsoever of them Those also may admit of a very great Advancement and these Lands will fall familiarly under every Piece according to their severall values and capacities but most especially under the third and fourth Piece treating of Tillage and Inclosure And then I shall proceed to shew you the nature of each sorts of Lands whereby the Remedies will be most facile and easie in the application And so I have ended the first Generall The second Generall Head holds forth the severall meanes of Cure Or the reducement of Land unto Fruitfulness and Fertility discovered under the first Piece of Improvement of floating or watering Lands CHAP. III. Shewes the first Cure or Remedy against Barrenness and therein discourseth what Lands are most suitable to watering Aud how to gain watering upon the same BUt before I discourse the same at large I shall only say that there are severall Remedies against the said Barrenness or divers meanes of reducing these Lands to their naturall fruitfulness or to the Improvement of them to a more Supernaturall Advance than they were ever known to be To which I must premonish the Reader that here lyeth all the Skill and Kernell which being made forth in some good measure I hope will give thee such satisfaction that thou wilt not onely vouchsafe me the reading and thy credit thereto but also be a practioner therein Which done with delight will not onely produce the reall advantage here discovered but far greater For these things are and may be brought to a greater height of Advancement by how much the more Ingenuity and Activity is exercised in the Prosecution and Experimenting of them and to a greater discovery by a constant familiar use of them which is the true and reall end of his Discovery and the Proverb herein best will hold The more the Merrier The Cure followes now more largely ALl sorts of Lands of what nature or quality soever they be under what Climate soever of what constitution or condition soever of what face or character soever they be unless it be such as Naturally participates of so much fatness which Artificially it may be raised unto wil admit of a very large Improvement Yet the fattest Land was hath been or may be bettered by good husbandry And such are the Lands that lye near or bordering upon any River or small Brooks your little Rivers and Rivulets admitting of greater falls and descents than your bigger Rivers do which run more dull slow more dead and levell whereby little Opportunity will be gained of bringing but little Land to so great advance by them but where the greater Rivers can be gained over any Lands there will the Improvement be the greatest and the Lands made the richest the greater Rivers being usually the fruit-fullest having more Land-floods fall into them But under your lesser Brooks may your greatest quantities of Land be gained and your water most easily and with small charge be brought over greater parcels than upon greater Rivers 1 For the discovering of such Lands as lie
to receive that so it may carry it all away plausibly within it self for the drayning Trench be sure thou indeavour to carry it as near upon a straight Line as is possible the Reason shall afterward appear This work is of more advantage and more to thy profit than thou imaginest but thy exercise therein will teach thee more Thou must also well consider the proper seasons of the year bringing on thy water which is in the beginning of Winter when Grass groweth least and beginns to fail and is clean eaten off thy Land all Winter long is very seasonable for this work and the best season to take it off is in or about the beginning of March thou maiest make what Improvement almost thou desirest also upon thy moyst cold Land if thou observe the directions given But for thy warm sound Land thou maiest continue thy water and keep it working upon thy Land almost all the year round Provided that thou keep it not too long upon a place for thou must be sure to have an especiall eye that thou soak not thy Land too much that Cattell treading or Grazing upon it foyl it not for thâ—n the Rush will come upon thee and it will overgrow thee and exceedingly prejudice thy hopes mistake me not I speak not here to advise thee to continue thy water thus long upon one place but be ever removing it from place to place but especially to shew the proper seasons to make use of this Piece of Improvement Thou hast also another great advantage hereby having water drawn over thy Land thou art in such a Capacity that in case of drought in time of Summer thou needest not to fear it thou mayst now and then wet over thy Land in the heat thereof when Grass if it have but Moysture will grow far faster in so hot a time than any but be sure not to soak thy ground too much Keep thy Land rather in a thirsting condition not glutted ready to spew it up again so maiest thou preserve thy Land green and fruitfull when others are scorched all away Then may a weekes Grass or a Load of Hay possibly be worth Three or Four I my self by these opportunities have cut twenty four Load in a Meadow where I cut but five or six the year before when Hay sold at a great value The directions exactly followed I will lose my Credit if thou fail of the effect promised And for thy encouragement I will give thee a president or two Certain Acres of light sandy Land were taken for a Term of one and twenty yeares at the value of one shilling six pence per Acre and that was more than it was worth a little Brook with a Land-flood issuing out of a Common Field was brought over it the Land levelled and made fit and even to receive it for it was very Irregular and of great high Ridges and Furrowes before after the manner of that Country and after two yeares working thirty shillings an Acre would have been given for it I my self offered it and some of that Land also was my own but it was refused being wrought just by the aforesaid Directions I have made the like Improvement my self upon Lands of the same nature to as great advancement as is here spoken off too tedious to discourse M. Plat also in his book produceth a president of Lands Improved by Water with the charge of three hundred shillings to be worth three hundred pounds per annum but what it was worth before the three hundred shillings were expended upon it he saith not but no question very great Improvement I beleeve it was As for Boggy Land also I have recovered severall Pieces next to plain Quagmires The meanes of reducing whereof shall be discoursed by themselves in the next Chapter So bad and boggy it was that Cattell could not Graze upon it out of danger And indeed it bore nothing but Cattayle's And by this course I recovered it to perfect soundness and made it worth betwixt thirty and forty shillings per Acre and so dare undertake the like where ever lying under the aforesaid Capacities Many more presidents of this nature are visible in many parts of this Nation Some as great Improvements as these Some lesse and yet very great And all done without any other Cost or Expence of charge in any other materialls than Poor mens labours Which to me is a second argument of Incouragement to promote all works of this nature under these Capacities One thing more I pray thee observe that though it be the common practice of most men in drayning their Land to make many shallow Trenches of about one foot deep aud lay their Mould on heapes that so they may spoil put little ground both which I must necessarily reprove as ill Husbandry For though I am all for Floating and Drayning which will necessarily occasion many Trenches yet I am an Enemy to this ordinary and usuall way of Trenching first for so many Trenches I conceive no need in these works nor upon any Land whatsoever but something more of them more seasonably in the second Piece of Improvement CHAP. VI. Sheweth the true Artificiall making of the Floating Trench and how to Levell Land and the suddainest way to Soard it USually I shall advise to make not above Two or Three materiall Trenches having first taken up thy Turf just under the Grass rootes both thin and square and as broad as can be taken up which I exceedingly prize for many uses and preserve The one called a Flowing of Floating Trench wherin I carry my water which usually after I have brought my water where I intend to work it I carry it in a Trench seldome above one foot deep or a foot and half many times not above eight or nine inches deep that so it being made Artificially viz so Level taper Narrower and Narrower as aforesaid the further it goes that it may so cast out the water that it may flow over the same for a furlongs length al at once which is the Excellency of it And then another drayning Trench running parallel with this or Two if the Land lye very flat and of such a depth as it may not onely receive all the water that Floweth over the Land clearly but that it may also drain away the cold Moysture and Bogginess that offends the Land by breeding either Rush or Bogg and of such a latitude or breadth from my floating Trench as thy water is of strength to Improve without Prejudicing of it by breeding Rush Flag or filth as aforesaid And as I make not many Trenches so I shall fil up all others that are not serviceable to these and so have done many a one that others have made to Drain their Land withall and with this One or Two Draines cast out in the lowest part of my Land layed dry more Land than a hundred of these common Trenches
would for a thousand Trenches made above the Corruption that feeds the Bogginess or Rushes never Draynes or takes away the cause that the effect cannot possibly cease As for heaping the Earth and moyling the ground that I also conceive may be prevented by maintaining one Horse and Cart and sometimes a couple of Wheel-Barrowes or a double Wheel-Barrow with two Wheeles made big enough for two men to wield or a little Cart made with two little Wheeles and another lesser than them by half to bear it at a constant pitch to fill which may be so made that either with two men or a horse you may carry away a great weight with much speed and shift it horse and man at pleasure which shall be described at large in the shaddow of it in the Tenth Chapter of Trenching tooles and into them I cast my Mould as I digg or cut out my Trench and so carry it away when I first digg it either into some old Trench or hollow place and there lay it and then take my Turf which I took up in all my other Trenches and cover over that Earth and there will be as good Soard that year if it be laid before February enter as in many parts of the Field beside And so shall save both the labour of removing my heaps afterward and the spoyling of so much Land as they would cover And for the better carrying on this Improvement by Water if thy Lands be either Hilly or Banky or lye high Ridge or Furrowes upon which thy water will never work kindly take a Direction on or two for the more easie Levelling of the same how to levell or plain Lands for watering most easily and Artificially which thou mayst doe either of these two wayes Either of which I cannot more especially commend unto thee thine own Experience will demonstrate that The first is levâ—lling by the Plough which thou mayst do by two or three dlowings and gain o crop also if thou rather affect it herein thou wert best to begin about the latter end of September first to plough thy land which I advise to cast as most men do a Fallow and then in the beginning of December be sure to give it a second plowing just overthwart all the Lands and so cut the Turf that the Soard may have all the Winters frost to wrox and moulder it which towards March thou mayst plow again and so cast it or raise it as thy Land requireth to bring it most even and levell and if one more plowing will not do it then thou must do more and Harrow it also to draw down high places and fill up Valleys and if it yet bee too irregular and some places so high that the Plough and Harrow will not bring them down thou must get some Labourers with their Spades and take down those places and cast them into Regularity A Labourer with a Spade upon this wrought Land will do aboundance in a day but be most Exact and curious in Levelling thy Land it brings more Advantages than thou art aware of or I have time to shew And then about the middest of April sow thy Lands with such seeds as are more suitable to the nature and richness of it but sow it not too thick by any meant nor too thin neither but the thinner is thy Corn the stronger it will be and the more grass will grow among which will help thee more in the Soarding of it than hinder thee in the Crop of it which Crop may pay a considerable summe towards this Charges But it thou desire a more speedy Soarding of it and hast no respect to the present profit nor charge in respect of a suddain dispatch of it then as before so soon as Grass begins to stand at a stay and growes but a little plow thy Land a thin broad furrow exceeding exact and true or rather flay it or take off thy Skin or Turf with a very broad whinged or rushed share as broad a Furrow as thy Plough will carry and as soon as thou hast plowed it cut it all at such length as thy Turf may hold taking up and heap thy Turf speedily upon the next Land and then plow thy Land again and cast it down and if it lye exceeding high cast it twice and then two men with their Spades will levell any uneven Hill or Ridge most easily and thou mayst either with the Plough or Spade or both immediately bring it flat and pursue the work with all violence the Turf being taken up speed thy levelling with Plough and Spade that so thou maiest be suddenly ready to lay down thy Turf again and then take this Turf by all meanes before the Grass be killed or lose the colour or deaded and lay it down as thou plowedst it up every Joynt meeting and closing as even as thou canst possibly and expect how much soever thou canst make plain and Levell before February thou mayest reap great fruit or a good Crop of Grass that Summer especially if thou hast Water to float it withall and when thou hast done One Land then thou maiest remove thy Furrowes or Turf to that thou hast levelled and work that Land accordingly as the other and then Turf it also and so goe forward throughout thy Field one after another And having brought your Land thus levell then your water will work most gallantly and even Floating every place Proportionably which you must take special care of not suffer it to run a whole Stream over some and scarce discernable over other parts but be sure every where alike and when you have your water over your Land that it run over it with a constant thin Stream it will Improve fast enough for soaking water breeds the filth which you must avoid as the most Pestilent Enemy to this Husbandry The second Piece of Improvement containing the Drayning or Reducing of Boggy Lands to sound Pasture is further discoursed in the Chapters following CHAP. VII WHerein is to be handled Drayning or taking away Superfluous and Venomous Water which lyeth in the Earth and much occasioneth Bogginess Miriness Rushes Flags and other filth and is indeed the chief cause of Barrenness in any Land of this nature Something I have already spoken as to Bogginess that lyeth under a Capacity to be floated with Water either River or Land-floods in the Reducement whereof you must precisely apply your self to al Parts of the former Chapter for bringing your Water upon your Land and working it also and taking it off again Especially that your Drayning-Trench or Trenches for possibly in this sort of Land more may be required according to the nature of the lying of your Land if Uneven and full of Dales and Vallies be made one Spades graft or pitch below the matter of the Bog I mean the Spring for so it is which must be clearly Drayned which I cannot too oft remind you of But now I onely speak to those
plainly shewes that the Rush cannot grow the water being taken from the root for it is not the moystness upon the surface of the Land for then every rain should encrease the Rush but it is that which lyeth at the Root which drained away at bottom leaves it naked and barren of relief But suppose it should breed some few and the Mareblab too which is a sign thy Land begins to fâ—tten then take thy whole Stream or a good considerable stream and bring upon that place and overflow it as it afore directed in the Third and Fourth Chapter in December and Ianuary if it take them not away I will doe it for thee Floating Land will as certainly destroy the Rush the Flagg and Mareblab being well drayned again as work the least Improvement and no Land richer than Watered Meades Thou wilt say many men have made great Experiments this way and done great works and cast up all again Either the profits would not answer the charge or else it would hinder some other Lands advance another way or else could not bring their Land to their desired Improvement or else do so little as was not worth their labour I had hoped that I had laid down such undenyable grounds and experiences as would have removed all those Objections but sith they are made have patience and I will return a particular answer to each clause of the Objection 1. I say were all this true as possibly it may in some men and in some parts yet be not discouraged because of what I have said and the Experiences made are also obvious and iâ— the view of them thou shalt see more advantage made than is heâ—â— affirmed 2. And secondly to confirm thy Objection I say We had some Mountebancks abroad that have held out specious pretences of wonders as many Engineers have done in drawing Water or drayning Lead-Mines Tin or Cole-Mines and to that purpose have projected Engines with double treble and fourfold Motions conceiving and affirming every Work or Motion would multiply the ease in raising the water but not considering that certainly it must multiply the weight and burthen thereof and also put such an Impossibilitie unto Tackles Geares and Wheeles for holding that all would flie in sunder at the very first motion and continually one thing or other out of order and snap in sunder as fast as amended because of the great strength is required to move the same mistake me not I do not here reprove the use of Engine Work a good Engineer is a gallant and most usefull Instrument in a Common-wealth and they have principles most able to make the best Husbands and Improvers I onely warn you of Imposters Engines are most necessary and easeth all our burthens and all our pondrous massie substances are or may be lightned thereby and a good Engineer in these dayes hath taught us the usefulness of them little lesse necessary than our very wel-being but those few Instruments here held forth are plain and simple and my Projections nothing but Country Experiments that I fear the plainess of them will be no less offensive they being onely to give a moderate ease and speed to so toylsome and costly lobours 3. I answer thirdly that many have made some Experiments but those I conceive have neither been full Experiments in all particulars nor Regular according to the particular directions here given And so may as well spoil all as he that takes all or most of the Ingredients in a Medicine and applies it to the Disease prescribed but either he misseth in the Composition or else in the Application or else if he be right in all he may fail for want of patience to wait the issue but casts all away as worth nothing and claps in with another Receit and so is able to give no positive resolution what the effect thereof might be Therefore I say as before I have said Trace me along in all particulars and fail in none of them and if the issue fail challenge the Author as a deceiver 4. And that I may answer the full charge I say take my counsell for the severall Tooles proposed and I question not that in most ordinary Works the charges shall not be any proportion to the profit But say an Acre of Land should cost thee forty shillings the fitting and preparing of it as possibly some may it may lye so irregularly 't is then as possible in two or three yeares time the same may be made worth forty shillings per annum yea more many other Acres thou maist work to as good an advantage for twenty shiâ—lings some for ten shillings some for five shillings and some less I could give the particular Experiments for them all were it more necessary than brevity which I so much affect and resolve And for prejudicing other Lands as many strongly object it is almost as if one Hive of Bees should prosper more in one Garden than twenty would the contrary Experience constantly manifesteth and so I have done with this improvement And for improving so little as it is not worth the labour that is as frivolous also Many score thousands of Acres in England are under this Capacity and may be reduced to a twenty or thirty fold improvement yea in some parts of the Kingdom some hundreds of Acres together may be wonderfully advanced this way to a proportionable Advantage and with less charge proportionably than a few There is also much Boggy and Miry Land that may be reduced to advancement and such capacity as some may lye under may be improved twenty fold or more And as for coarse Fen and Marsh Lands upon both Fresh and Salt waters there have been such gallant notable Atchievements by many Accurate and Ingenious Spirits to whom the Nation oweth high Acknowledgements and whose works and experimenuts I do admire and honour to whom I desire to be a Pupil Yet notwithstanding their Discoveries and their works cut forth throughout the Nation and left to Idle Practitioners and Slothfull impatient Slubberers who have not onely done it by the halfes but stifled many a gallant plotted Opportunity of a far greater Advance than it hath produced And so possibly in many parts of the Nation there may be great Reparations of these Ruins and a certain Reducement to high Advantage As also some Addition possibly to their Modell or some increase to their Beginnings which is acknowledged far easier than the first Projection and shall be discoursed at the latter end of this Chapter The last way of Improvement of these sorts of Lands prejudiced by water is a way appliable to every other sort of Land whatever which lye under that Opportunity or Capacity which is cutting straight the water-courses of little Brooks and Streames that run many times in spirall lines and sometimes circularly as they would make the figure 8. and so lose as much more excellent Land as
need be nay in some places twice or thrice as much besides these Angles Triangles and almost Squares and Circles much endangering Cattell by goaring rushing and thrusting them in and also makes such stoppages and oppositions to the water that hinders the Current of it and occasioneth it to lye soaking on the Land that it either breedeth Rush Flag or Mareblab Also the aforesaid directions is a great means of laying sound much Land overcome by Bogginess the water lying so upon it that it drowneth or stifleth a great part of the fruitfulness of it yea suffocateth and choaketh others also bordering upon it no small prejudice to the Nation in generall and to many Town-ships and persons in particular A straight water-course cut a considerable depth in a thousand parts of this Nation would be more advantagious than we are aware of or I will task my self here to dispute further And though many persons are interessed therein and some will agree others will oppose one Creek lyeth on one side of the River in on◠Lords Manor another lyeth on the other side divers men own the same why may not one neighbour change with another when both are gainers If not why may they not be compelled for their own good and the Common-wealths advantage I dare say thousands of Acres of very rich Land may hereby be gained and possibly as many more much amended that are almost destroyed but a Law is wanting herein for present which I hope will be supplied if it may appear Advancement to the Publick for to Private Interests it is not possible to be the least prejudice when every man hath benefit and each man may also have an equall allowance if the least prejudiced But a word or two more and 〈◊〉 shall conclude this Chapter and it is a little to further this Improvement through a great destruction as some may say it is the removing or destroying of all such Mills and none else as drow◠and corrupt more Lands than themselves are worth to the Common-wealth and they are such as are kept up or dammed so high as that they boggifie all the Lands that lye under their Mill-head such Mills as are of little worth or are by constant great charges maintained I advise to be pulled down the advance of the Land when the water is let run his course and not impounded will be of far greater value many times But in case the Mills should be so necessary and profitable too and far more than the Lands they spoil I shall then advise that under thy Mill-dam so many yards wide from it as may prevent breaking through thou make a very deep Trench all along so far as thy lands are putrified and thereinto receive all the issuing spewing water and thereby stop or cut off the feeding of it upon thy meadow and carry it away into thy back-water or false course by as deep a Trench cut through the most low and convenient part of thy Meads But put case thou shouldst have no convenient fall on that side thy Mildam then thou must make some course or plant some trough under thy Mill-dam and so carry it under into some lower course that may preserve it from soaking thy meadows or pastures under it and by this meanes thou maiest in a good measure reduce thy Land to good soundness and probably wholly cure it and preserve thy Mill also As for that objection of hindering the grinding of corn it is very frivolous for First there are in many parts so many Mills as hinder one another and are scarce able to live one by another 2. There are or may be Wind-mills erected in most parts that may supply that want and are less chargable than Water-mills And for that some say the wind is uncertain I say it is so certain that I am confident few or none need want grinding if they can get corn for I my self live in a Country where are no other but Wind-mills and have scarce in a twelvemonth known any want of grinding But should it be so one may be supplied by Horse-mills one good horse will grind wheat easily and two good horses will grind any good dry corn and are not at that charge for repairs as both Wind-mills and Water-mills are 3. I say it is possible to devise a Mill with truth of workmanship and some other advantages that two men may grind any good corn whatsoever and that as much in an hour as any usuall Water-mill in the Country and to this work I shall commend one Mr. Dimock a very ingenious Gentleman and one who hath discovered so much to the World already as may give sufficient testimony of the truth of his abilities in this kind CHAP. IX The Ninth Chapter shall be a brief and plain discoverie of the most Feacible way of Fen-drayning or regaining drowned Lands or in bounding of the Sea from it AS to the Drayning or laying dry the Fenns those profitable works the Common-wealths glory let not Curs Snarl nor dogs bark there at the unparralleld advantages of the World give me leave because hitherto all men have Monopolised their inventions as they call them as possibly they might lawfully unto themselves and the mystery and no mans Experiences therein have at all been published to publique view which whether it do arise from a privacy of Spirit self advancement or rather from an ungratefull frame of men Governors trusted with the publique Weal of a Nation or great men well able to recompence publique discoveries whose shares will be greatest of the Advantage which last through Charity I am bound and from sad Experiences many Ingenious hearts have found I doe beleeve but no man as I ever yet saw or heard hath published any thing at all to any such purpose as to dismystery the same therefore by the good leave of thy patience I shall take boldness to pull off the vizor of those apprehensions I have found therein and discover the open face of that Experience I have made be it beautifull or deformed in pitty to move others to cover the deformities thereof or put more beauty thereon In the discourse whereof I shall candidly indeavour to draw it into as plain a Map or Platform as the roughness and confusedness of the work or my weaknesses will admit and to that end shall confine my self to these pareiculars 1. What drayning is and a discovery of Fen-Lands how they lie to those that know them not 2. To discover some of the Rubbs or hinderances that lie in the way of working it to the Common-Wealths ad-advantage 3. To hold out the Cure or best and speediest way for the Reducement or recovery thereof to perfect foundness 4. To discover the best and most profitablest way of Improvement of those recovered Lands to the best advantage of the Common-Wealth In all which I shall say but little nor can say half that is to be said herein but to each shall speak somewhat as near
for as upon great raines the Rivers or Water-courses in the uplands are not able to contain the Floods neither are the Fen Rivers Sewers or water-courses able to take away those Floods that come out of the higher Countries or uplands aforesaid And as the small brooks first overflow because of the disproportion betwixt those narrow watercourses and the floods that run in them and are unflowed again when or before the great Rivers begin to rise and the Flood of the great Rivers continue longer than the lesser so the Fen Rivers or Water-courses being much lesser proportionable to their great Floods than the little brooks are they can not contain their own water Floods with the Rivers and Floods of the upland Countries too but are forced over the banks into that great Flat or Levell of fen-Fen-land and Meadow on both sides their Water-courses and being there dispersed many miles into a great breadth and length being ever and anon relieved with fresh Land-Floods most part of Winter long continue neither having a great fall nor large â—â—omthy Water-courses into the Sea nor other artificiall Receptacles to receive them cannot so truly nor suddenly run off again but had they Water-courses proportionable either in Number or Greatness to other great Meadows they would most of them drain themselves and return to as perfect Meadow and Pasture as any in England for almost all Land-floods and Rivers that lye on the same side of the Country the Fens lye on from the highest part of the up-lands run into and through the Fens to the Sea as their constant course if the Spring be kindly and moderatly dry the Fen-water runneth and dryeth away apace and many times in February or the entrance of March especially when the winds sit fair that is to drive the waters Sea-ward they are grazeable with great cattell and many times with Sheep too and some part of them are all Winter dry and never drowned and many of those keep as much stock of cattell especially of sheep all Winter as ever I saw any Common or pasture without hay And to conclude this description whereby you may not onely frame out a Model of the Fens but discover the Fecibility if not the only way of Drayning them which ushereth in my second particular which is 2. The discovery of some of those hindrances or rubs that either hinder or infacilitate this work of Fen-drayning and they are either in the Land it self the Commoners or the undertakers thereof The first Hindrance is in the Land 1. In the Land there may be such Mountaines and Rockiness betwixt the place you desire to drain and the Sea or River into which you must draw your drain that it may make the work so chargeable as the profits thereof will not counterpoise 2. Also there may be such a Vein of Earth as is so Moorish or exceeding Sandy upon which you must be forced to plant your Sluces or Water-gates as besides the extraordinary charge of Workmanship may much hazard the continuance of the Work and so with extraordinary charge and great hazard may render the fruits therof below the expences These things are possible yet not usuall The Second Hindrance may be in the People The Commoners and they may and do much hinder it in reproaching of the Work it self as I hinted before and weary the minds and weaken the hands of others that would indeavour it But the greatest hindrance is their unfaithfulness to the Work by their dulness and neglect of raising sufficient summes of monys to carry on the work and raising it so seasonably as may expedite the same for these Works are not to be trifled withall it must be the speedy and powerfull carrying on at once as well as the Artificiall and wise managing of it A little season lost may lose the cost and works of a whole Summer and whilest neighbors are contesting about the quality of their Levies and disputing every mans Right to pay and gathering up their moneys the Works may run further backward in a week than they were brought forward in a month I have seldome known a rude multitude or a confused heady people ever agree in this these works creep forward but run post backward Again the combination of labourers and Poor people may very much prejudice besides their slothfull and sleathy slubbering of it if not exceeding carefully overseen The Third Hinderance may be in the Vndertaker or Drayner And although this may not be such an Essential Prejudice to the Work it self as the rest are because a man would think that he that either for his wages or credit works it should doe his best yet to the common good it may be as destructive as the former And herein and in the former Hindrance as I desire not to discourage any Ingenious Spirits so neither do I desire to fawn upon the most ablest Artist but do hereby affirm that the Undertaker or Artist in this Work may exceedingly Eclipse the Common Good and through a corrupt selfish Spirit may monopolize to his private advantage particular mens Interest and in and under pretence of doing a Common Good may utterly ruin thousand souls Corrupt self or Corruption it self will endeavour this but an Ingenious Spirit scorns perfidiousness yet many an Undertaker may in these respects be an hindrance to the prosperity of Fen-draining if he be upon a publick Work for private I meddle not withall 1. If that he lay not out a good Foundation he either wholly spoils it or at least bungles out a half work and leaves the Cream behind him and it destroyes it self at last 2. If that men shall pick and cull their Lands drayn those that are more fecible and leave out those that are more difficult I say he is an enemy to the Common good And this is a Maxim I shall declare Drain the worst and the best will drain it self and sometimes the lowest Lands may if thoroughly drained prove the best Lands and be the speediest and easiest way to drain the whole 3. If that men drain those Lands wherein they are like to have an interest throughly and those the Commoners have more overly or imbank or secure the one from land-floods and not the other or if he make not such a through drain of all as may go to the bottom and lay it sound at root I am sure he will not attain the End the best fruit and advantage the Lands will yeeld which that it may be accomplished I shall descend to the third Particular The Third Particular to be considered is The Cure or best and speediest way of Reducing drowned Lands unto perfect soundness A Work too great for my shallow parts and scanty leasure And therein because I shall not dare to teach men so many degrees abler than my self I shall onely modestly propose some few Queries the which if any shall answer in lines or practice I shall have my End the Common-wealth will receive more
light and I my self full satisfaction 1. Whether all waters whatsoever the more they increase in quantity the more in weight if so then 2. Whether if all waters biggen the further they run especially in floods whether then all water-works or cuts must not biggen and strengthen also if that a perfect securing from Floods be intended And if so then 3. Whether all Water-courses that are made for drains must not widen biggen and strengthen proportionable both to the Land-floods that come out of the upper Countries as also proportionable to the waters or downfalls that come from Heaven and fall upon the said Lands And so require answerable Receptacles if so then 4. Whether or what is the proportion or how may a man know the gage thereof and so how to make every course equall to the water it must carry 5. Where the greatest difficulty lies in drayning the Fens whether in drayning the Fens from their own naturall waters and moisture or in preserving them from the Land-floods that come from the high Lands If the great difficulty be to preserve them from the Land-floods of other Lands as to me seems probable then whether it would not be more really advantagious to a perfect draining to take off the Land-floods at or before their entrance into the Fens and so carry them along the Fen-side under the up-lands and not suffer them to come into the middle of the Fen as long as it may be kept off untill you come to strike with one straight course into the out-let of the Sea or River or within some few miles thereof And whether this would not be the likeliest certain meanes to prevent the just offencâ—â—he Commoner and Country seemed to take in the last undertaking who una voce cry out that the Undertakers secured their own by banks and preserved them from the Land-floods and drowned all the Commoners side as much as ever and that by every considerable Flood And if this be granted then I dare conclude the Fen will drain it self with a small course and with greater speed and more certainty as well as more substantially And so I shall onely move this further and so refrain 6. Whether if any of the aforesaid particulars be affirmed then must not of necessity all the Out-lets or Mouths of all the Master-work and Sluces and Water-gates be widened and made proportionable to your higher courses lest that the water receive a check thereby either to force your Sluces or give a recoil to the waters into the Fen again I mean proportionable as well in greatness of the fall as to the breâ—dth and depth of the water-course I shall onely now desire to know whether when the Master-drains are made substantially deep it will not be â—o most advantage to divide the lands into lesser divisions by small draines than to cast them out into greater proportions yet I shall not prescribe so small as some do but into the most convenientest divisions may be for the compleat draining And as to Sluces Water-gates Locks c. I shall say little because they are under the command of Rule and Truth of Workmanship and a good experienced Millwright or Engineer is well able to regulate them to as much Advantage for close shutting and suitable opening to the incomming of the Tide or out-going of the Floods as the variousness of opportunities will require which I forbear because they cannot easily be described without figures And as to the severall Tooles to be used in the working of these Water-courses they are common and most of them in common use upon the Fens except a good water-levell which I have at large described in the tenth Chapter which is most essentially necessary for the casting or laying out of all the Works therof and a Trenching Plough to cut out the first Works and the Turfing Spade all largely described in the next Chapter I shall onely speak a word or two to the Improvement of some particular parcels of Fen-lands which in themselves are drainable and without the least dependauce upon the general draining although I will not say but such Land would more easily be drained in the generall than it will be done of it self yet seriously pondering all things in one even ballance there may be little difference and that upon this account if it be done as a member of the General then it must contribute to the generall charge and share in the generall breaches or miscarriage and in all paaticulars stand and fall therewith Also then it is subject to the same hazard as the generall is of prejudice by reason of the differences that may arise betwixt the Owners Proprietors Commoners Undertakers or whosoever which may be very many and so great as may tend to the ruin of the whole which without dependance thereupon it will not be And I am confident some very considerable parcels of Lands lie so convenient and so fecible unto the Work that they may be done most easily and others lye more difficultly and will be done more chargeably All which I shall hold forth under these two descriptions 1. Are all Lands that lye somewhat higher of themselves and are never drowned unless it be by some extraordinary Inundation of themselves these are most easily recovered of themselves at a little more charge than any common Lands are inclosed and that by one good substantiall Dike well turfed or sodded as the Fen-men call it on the outside round about the same and well rammed and beaten together it need neither be very broad nor high the height and weight of the water offending will discover that unto you nor indeed cost any more than the charge of a good quick Dike which every good Husband bestowes upon a new division and I dare say there are many thousands of Acres of Lands in many parts of the Fens of this nature 2. The Second is the more difficult and yet very fecible also and that is certain Creeks or corners of Land â—â—unning into the up-lands and upon the out-skirs of the Fens and many out-borders that are onely anoyed with their own and the swellfng of the naturall Fen-waters and are cleer from any Land-floods or up-land waters running through them and have one or two sides firm and the securing of one or two sides more will secure the whole These are easily drainable without dependance upon the draining of the whole Fen and that by a more substantiall imbanking than the former to secure it self from the great waters of all other Fens and then there will onely rest to resolve how to drain it self to which I shall onely say that having well provided against the waters of bordering Fens find out the lowest part of all thy Lands and thither draw a good substantial Master-drain through all thy Lands and there plant a water-Engine which may either be wrought by the wind or by the strength of horse yea possibly by the strength of two or three men
which if the compass of thy Land be not great and thy water small may be but a very inconsiderable charge And thy Engines may also be divers as an Engine or Windmill may with a water-wheel planted in thy Water-course or Master-drain or very near unto it which water-wheel must be made to that height as may be sure to take out the bottom of the water and deliver it at the middle of the wheel which wheel may be contrived into such a form as that the Ladles as I may call them or Peals or Scoops as others call them will cast up and cast out the water to a considerable height as a man doth with a hand-scoop pail or kit cast water out of a ditch which Engine shall at large hereafter both be described and the form of it delineated or else by a good chain-pump or bucket-work both which may be made into a Wind-mil-Engine or else with an Engine made with a perpetual Screw all which for that height as is requirable to the draining of such a Work wil lay a good compass of Land dry in a few daies and if time prevent not shall most of them be described at large 3. But a Third is most difficult which I yet conceive also fecible and may be recovered also to a great advantage And that is such a parcel of Land that lieth also at a skirt or out-side of the Fen although it may have some Land-flood running through it or near it which Land-flood if it be possible either to divert it on the one hand or the other of the Land you desire to drain or else if it be be a small Floud within the compass and power of an Engine may also be drainable and by the aforesaid direction of inbanking the Land to secure the Land-flouds from comming on at at all which with a reasonable Bank and a fair open passage to convey the Land-flouds clenly away may prevent the fear therof And then a fair Master-drain down through the lowest ground or neer the middle of the Fen you desire to drain which must be made so deep as that it may substantially draw all cold corrupt water into it self I prescribe no depth because I cannot give to all sorts of Fen-lands no nor to any other by measure a suitable and necessary proportion so far from off the place where it is to be made and this drain to be continued to that place where you have most conveniencie to land your water and there planting one of the aforesaid Engines I shall leave every of them to each mans own affection I know they will every one do the Work and that a very inconsiderable charge to the profits and advantages to be received and reaped hereby I shall say no more in this case because I much more desire the general Work which will make all these particulars to come on the easier The draining of the whole Fens yet considering the rubs that lie in the way of the general and the great delaies and uncertainties therof I am perswaded to discover the capacities of particulars As for the particular Engines the Figures and Delineations of them they shall hereafter follow to be described to the very capacity of the Country Farmer as far as possibly may be And because I desire to speak to the understanding of the meanest you must a little bear with my tediousness till you come to the practice and then you 'l find plainness very usefull and all I have said little enough to discover the same Now to proceed to the Fourth generall Head of this discourse to set forth the best way of Improvement of the aforesaid Lands I shall say the less because through my whole discourse it is my main Scope and so shall confine my self onely to some of those particulars more peculiar to these Lands though being substantially drained they are capable of the impress of any Husbandry whatsoever I shall therfore divide the Fen-lands into three sorts First The sound dry Land seldom or never drowned The Second shall be your constant drowned Lands in times of great Flouds And the Third shall be your lowest Land of all that lieth constantly so wet and cold that it is turned into a very Moor or Bog 1. Your dry Lands I for the present account them the very best and most capable of raising the greatest present profit I shall therefore because it is fruitfull of it self to grass and will yeeld advance enough thereby and also because there will be enough for many years of the other two sorts remain to husbandrize and toss and tumble up and down perswade to lay it all for pasturage until your other Lands be perfectly recovered and improved but this may prove undoubtedly excellent Hemp-land Oad-land may be Mather-land and most excellent yea rather too good for Cole and Rape-seed because there will be other worser enough for that 2. To the second sort only drowned by up-land flouds so lie dry when the floud is gone I say if this be not leavened with coldness or steeped so w th constant corrupt water that it is turned into a moorishness but yet remaines perfect Land and clear Soard this very Land may prove your best Land in a little time and therefore I shall onely for the reducing hereof advise to a moderate plowing of it and for the reducing of it to perfect soundness advise to raise it every plowing dividing each ground into lands about three yards over or thereabout which will take two casts of seed and in five or six tilths will rise up to so convenient a height as will lay it sound and dry and increase your Land also yet however you must not endeavour the laying any Land any higher than your drains will be sure to draw your furrows But in case the Level of your water will not admit you to raise up your Lands to so good a height then you were best make your Lands somewhat lesser and then the fewer plowings will lay them round and sound but be carefull not to make your last furrow alwais in one place but in each plowing shift one furrow or more sometimes one way and somtimes another and this wil preserve the furrow from overmuch barrenness This Land may be suitable and very excellent for Cole-seed and coming to its perfect soundness for most of the aforesaid opportunities but exceeding rich for all sorts of Grain out of question onely I shall earnestly perswade not to plow too oft nor impoverish it too much at first for hereby most men undo their Lands I conceive it best not to plow any of these Lands no longer than it is brought into a perfect Tilth or one year after three years may do best though four years may do well and you will find a gallant sweet Turf succeed and soard thick suddenly and sweetly and your succeeding profits all things considered may reach your very benefit of corning to a very neer scantling I
they are and the sharper and curiously kept the better will they rid off work by far and the more easie and delightfull to the Workman and not fur and clog with Earth which makes the work go off very heavily The Third Piece of Improvement shews how to Enclose without offence and prevent Depopulation that is most common Attendant and Appurtenant to Enclosure and how to make Severall all Arable Common Field Lands and also all Common Heaths Moores Forrests Wasts to every particular Interests and the Common-wealths great Advantage CHAP. XI The Eleventh Chapter Treateth of Improving Land by Pasture Reproves Depopulation proves excellent advantage by Enclosure and taketh away the usuall Scandals layd upon it THis Piece of Improvement will be the better carryed on if we could but prevent two great Rocks men are apt to dash upon and keep the Medium betwixt both The one is so Extreme for Pasturing and Grazing as he will destroy Tillage and raising of Corn so he may convert all to Sheep Wooll and Cattell though the contrary be of incomparable more advantage Credit and Glory The other all for Tillage and Plowing that he will toyl all his dayes himself and Family for nothing in and upon his common arable Field Land up early and down late drudge and moyl and wear out himself and Family rather than he will cast how he may Improve his Lands by Impasturing and Enclosing of it whereby he may raise more profit in Sheep Wools Cattell and far more Corn also if he please upon every Acre For the discovering a little these self deceivers to themselves I shall speak a word or two more large to each Extreme The first Extreme is partly through so deep an Affectation of Tillage and plowing in Common although it be to his perpetuall slavery and drudgery all his dayes he will not leave it and especially through a prejudice he hath taken against Enclosure through some mens depopulation and oppression and destruction of Tillage that he will not approve hereof upon any Tearmes but oppose with all the might and main he can what saith he Enclose depopulate destroy the poor no our fathers lived well upon their land without Enclosure kept good hospitality many servants and bred up many children and abhominated the thoughts thereof and so will wee prevent it if we can wee will toyl and moyl all our dayes and breed up our children to keep sheep horse or beast kick up their heeles upon a bank flit our horses and breed them up to take our inheritance of Thirty Forty or Fifty pounds by the year with which few can scarce bring both ends together by the yeares end as dayly experience shewes they not once considering the fruit of Idleness not the great Improvement of this honest equall Enclosure nor their childrens ruin for want of learning Trade or good breeding the least whereof is better or may be better to them than all their lands Witness thousands in England that prefer their children better with a little good breediug with little portion than they can or usually do with all their inheritance The second extreme is as like the former as can be and is so prejudiciall to the Common-Wealth and destructive to good husbandry and it ariseth out of base private humour of sloth and self-will and want of a wise Spirit of discerning in Improvements and because he seeth some men have abused 〈◊〉 Pasture-Land by over plowing and took out the Spirit and life thereof that it will not come to it self of many yeares which is an ill piece of providence indeed therefore he will not plow any old Pasture Land at all upon any tearmes or for any time no though his Land be so decayed and impoverished that that Land which would have maintained much cattell will not now maintain so much by one third part or a quartern as it did after the first through soarding and by reason either of the wet and cold year or the overpowring of the moss or Anthills or some other trash it puts not that proof into Cattell nor scarce half as it did at the first Soarding nay though it calls loud for plowing and will be much bettered and the Rent doubled yet he will not have it plowed come what will What saith he destroy my old Pasture my sheep-walkes and beggar my Land all the world shall not perswade him to that you may as soon perswade him not to eat good wholesome food because some men overcharged their stom acks by excesse herein because here and there an indiscreet man did wrong his Land by excessive plowing he will not use it at all not moderately though he may Mend or better it thereby No saith he I can raise a constant profit by my Wool and lamb my fat beef and mutton at an easie quiet way unto my self and family without much vexing or turmoyling which is a gallant way of living and I shall exceedingly advise and commend it too until the Land degenerate and calls out for plowing or the Common-wealth calls out for corning and will yeeld far better advance therby he takes more content in a Sheep-heard and his dogg and in his own will and ease than in greater advantage and as the other Extreme will hinder all Improvements he can by way of Enclosure under pretence of overthrowing Tillage though a man may till as much get far more Corn in Pasture than in Common if he will so will this out o◠as vain and senseless pretences hinder all Corning in pasture lest he should prejudice his Land for grazing although he may moderate corning and better his Land to grazing also so have I erected a Sea-mark upon both these Rocks that all men may take heed of dashing themselves thereon the Ingenious I am sure will never come near them But for satisfaction to the first extreme maintayned by that generation of strange men that oppose Enclosure yet see every day the Rents of those Lands Improved some doubled some more some less and the Land certainly advanced by it one Acre made worth three or four and after a while will bear more Corn without soyl for three or four year than divers Acres as it was before in Common that onely say Enclosure may as easily be made without depopulation as with it and to the other Extreme I am not ashamed maintain as a reproof to this Extreme that many ten thousand Acres of Land in England may yeeld a double profit divers yeares by plowing and afterwards yeeld as much rent as ever before and possibly much more Nay I 'll say observe my Directions punctually and I 'll make good the old Rent the very first year after Plowing and begin to enter upon it as soon as the Crop is reaped off and begin my year with Winter too which is accounted the worst advantage to the Tenant and so for Seven Ten or Twenty upon many sorts of Lands in England of the aforesaid Value But to stop the
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
him to be Capable of Hospitality of which he is to be a Lover far better able to give than to receive and to Administer to others than to be administred unto by way of Charity And as for the great depopulation in the Nation that hath devoured poor Tenant overthrow Corning and good Husbandry and in some parts Minister and all and yet persist by keeping their Land from Tillage when it wants it when Country the Landlords profit the Markets the Labourer Poor and Land it self and all calls for it is no less than grand oppression As also for other places where no maintainance is assigned for the Minister but the people starve for want of bread and where those great Impropriations are that devour all the Profits and have all to a short-coat Vicaridge How these things should be mended is infinitely beyond my Sphere how Ministers should be raised maintenance and all Interest preserved I know not only I shall pray the wise God to direct our highest Counsells in regulating these distractions for it is far beyond my shallow capacity how to advise And for the Free-holder Farmer or Tenant I question not the Free-holders offence for he having his proportion I know it will be doubled and more to his advantage And for the Tenant let him also share in some Advancement either let him injoy it at an easie rate that look whatsoever Bargain he hath in common by the year he may have a better upon the Enclosure or else let him take a Lease for Lives or Yeares that as he enjoyes the worst upon the first Inclosure so he may have the best also having a good Tâ—rm of time therein and then I hope he will not wrangle neither for I am sure he need neither Moyl nor Cark as he did before but manage his business with more ease sweet content and advance of profit And for the Land-Lord or Lord I shall not much bespeak his favour or Approbation for he will beleeve me without Demonstration that there will be a visible and considerable advance fall upon him onely crave his patience that he 'll not be offended that I seem and but seem so to do to project to give away his Right as to the Poor which in Common is their own whether by Right Custome for I speak of no other in this place but such as have right of Common and so they may require so much by Law but to encourage them and to remove offence and scandall I advise it And when all these particulars concerned in their severall Rights are satisfied we shall do well and yet the great Block and Prejudice is yet to be removed which is the destruction of Corn and Tillage which I promised to clear which followes here First I indeavour before Enclosure that either by ingagements so firm and surely made by all parties concerned in it as they may fall under Law to be recovered Or else by a particular State Law enacted to this end so to ingage all men in this new Inclosure to allot or cast out one third part or thereabout at least of all their Lands constantly for Tillage or what more at any time they please One third part for Meadow And another third part for Pasture or feeding Land which third part for Tillage if my conceptions fail not First with the help of all that Soyl that the Hay of the other third part will raise in maintaining all the Cattell in Winter that they Pastured in summer upon the other third part which I conceive may be as many more and also Secondly by that advantage there will be sometime Plowing on Pasture and resting Another whereby fresh Land and Reitey for some years will bear more Corn without Manure than it did before with it and indeed also after some yeares of resting may stand in need of Plowing and possibly may advance the Land by it as I am sure they will all our Wood-land coarser Lands whatsoever that are either subject to the Moss or Rush or Ant-hills whatever it will do to better Thirdly well knowing that without question one Acre of well Manured and Husbandryed Land will yeeld more fruit than two or three otherwise A principle undeniable Fourthly consider the vast advantage there will be by Husbandring a little well I say it is clear some one Acre manured plowed and husâ—andred in season and unto that height of Richness the Land and seed sowed doth require may and doth usually bear as much Corn as two or three ill husbandred as aforesaid Then ballance the Business and weigh but the advantage One Acre beareth the fruit of three the two Acres are preserved to graze the seed and all other charges of two Acres is preserved to help the Markets The Husbandry and Plowing and sowing of two Acres is also saved Oh consider it and neither be such Enemies to the State nor of your selves and Common-wealth so great Abusers of Ingenuity and Good Husbandry so great Traducers When men have their Lands enclosed and at their own command I fear not but most men will covet to Husbandry every Acre so well as it may yeeld forth the utmost fruit it is possibly able to produce having the rest at their own Command also to imploy to another Advantage Which done half the Land in England thus managed would yeeld more than all that now is under Tillage This Poor Piece by the by observed and practised would make good the Improvement promised consider it well and be convinced or reply Fifthly if you consider that all your Common Fields were never under Tillage neither As great part Sâ—ades and Hade wayes and a great part Meadow and much and many Balkes between each Land and many High wayes and some commune of Pastures and Leayes left for keeping Beasts or Sheep upon all which will contain one third part as I conceive if not near half in some places not under Tillage but wast Lands Certainly I conclude there may be as much Corn go by Ingenuity upon this lesser quantity of Ground and much more being inclosed than upon it all in Common And that there cannot be any destruction of Tillage upon all theâ—e Wasts and Grazed parts which ever lay to Grass and no Tillage was upon them so that I must clearly conceive were one third pâ—rt upon all Enclosure allotted out or covenanted to be kept constantly in Tillage though I advise not to keep the same third part alway in Tillage but sometimes one part and sometimes another all making up one just third part would raise as much Corn as all did in Common And lastly Enclosure cannot destroy Tillage the Staff of the Country because it ever yeelds most profit nor will nor need all be converted to Pasturage Cain and Abel were born and planted together and ordained to live together and if there were any danger of one destroying the other Tillage is likelyer to destroy Pasturage because Cain slew Abel
but without a fear the Ploughman and the Sheepheard may do best together in a Common-wealth CHAP. XIII Sheweth the Excellency of Tillage and the great Profit thereof and the great Advance is made out of severall Enclosed Countries beyond Champain as also the great Improvement of Heaths Moores and Forrests which will dismiss those needless feares of overthrowing Tillage NOw Tillage yeeldeth the greatest profit to Land-Lord or Occupier study especially the Good Husband to convert thy Land to the best Profit And that is held and maintained by all men to be by Tillage else why do men give double Rents to Till and Plow above what they do to Graze and if thou art not yet satisfied consider but the Wood-Lands who before Enclosure were wont to be releeved by the Fieldon with Corn of all sorts And now are grown as gallant Corn Countries as be in England as the Western parts of Warwickshire and the Northern parts of Worcestershire Staffordshire Shropshire Darbyshire Yorkshire and all the Countries thereabouts and all the Chalk Countries both South and West-ward Also consider the Chiltern Countries and you shall find that were it al Inclosed men would Plow little or no whit less than now they do because nothing else nor no way else would yeeld the like advance Consider Hartfordshirex Esse Kent Surry Sussex Barkshire Hampshire Wiltshire Somersetshire and all the rest All which not onely raise Corn for themselves but to supply that great City that Spends as much as all those Countreyes and far more And yet no parts of England set at greater Rates or makes greater Advantages by Grazing and yet the greatest part thereof upon Tillage and Corning And what Country not almost though Inclosed yeelds the greatest profit by the Abundance of Corn produced But if all that I have said be not enough I have enough I am sure before I have done As for your Heathes Moores and Forrest Lands I shall onely speak thus much That vast and Incredulous are their Capacities of Improvement in generall referring the particular wayes of Improvement of every sort and differing natured Land as they fall in the fourth or sixt Piece of Improvement to avoid prolixity because the very same Ingredients Compositions and Directions are suitably and naturally appliable to these Lands as to those to which they are prescribed Therefore I onely say that all Interests in these Commons or Rights of Common Pasture upon any of these Lands may without Prejudice to any particular Interest be advantaged and much Improvement made to the Publique I speak not to inright the Usurpers of right wrongfully maintained or Oppressors of any other mens Rights I desire that Right might onely run in its proper Chanell First in generall by the same Method of Enclosing held forth in this third generall Piece of Improvement touching Common Field-Lands if thereto before Enclosure you do but add the Method or Drought of first casting out your Lands and plotting them into such Plots and Formes so that where there is or may be a Capacity of bringing thy Land under any good Stream or Land-flood be sure to cast it for Meadowing having drawn one Master Level floating course throughout they whole Plot of Enclosure which may also serve as thy first division and to carry thy water along also to flow thy Meadowing thou shalt make all under it fit that thou mayst not lose that Opportunity now at first which after divisions made cannot be had of so great an Improvement at so small a Rate now at thy first contrivance thou mayst cast it under and then cast out all thy Lauds accorto the most suitableness of them all to such Improvements they lye under and then to the Conveniencies of each mans Right and Interest and the greatest Advancement upon these Inclosures will be two The first giving all Ingenuous men a Capacity to Plow and Till what they please thereof which will raise a double or treble Advantage as to Grazing and a Tenfold greater Advance as to Common of Pasture which to some is worth nothing at all because of their remoteness to others but little because of some great Oppressor nearely and neatly seated upon the Commons that drives others from it and to none what it may be as by right when he may use all his Parts Purse and Experiences of Husbandry at his own pleasure by improving it And it is and never was otherwise seen that men would ever joyn together in one body to use their utmost to improve any of these Lands to the best Advantage for though Common of Pasture is mens own Inheritance and every man not knowing his Lot or Portion how rarely will they ever joyn or agree therein although they are all perswaded of a probable great Advancement yet one sayes I shall not have so great an Advantage by it as my neighbour and another he believes it will be good for present but it will not last and an another sayes he hath no reason to bear so great a proportion of Charge though he have as much Land yet he 's not capable of so great an Improvement and another saith I could be well content to help on any publique work if others would but for me to bestow cost and improve my Land or commons for others that will bestow none to eat and bite up my cost much discourageth him and indeed there is some Reason for his backwardness and a thousand Excuses and Cavils there must be which though a wise man may easily answer yet never convince their Judgements for it hath ever been so since their dayes and their Fore-fathers were as wise as they and they cannot be satisfied let it alone and weeâ—l take the present profit it yeelds and there is an end of their Improvement And here I 'll give you a President which though it might as to the nature of it have come in more seasonably in the discourse about common Field Land yet here it is very naturall also both as to the end I bring it for and for the discovering a Capacity of a vast Improvement both upon it self and upon all other Lands of that nature There are many hundred if not thousands of Acres of Lands near Dunstable in a Valley under Puddle or Chalk-Hills just under the bottome of the Hills an eminent place known well to most which I believe runs both wayes far but on both sides the Rode-way to Coventry and VVestchester the Land lyeth with a little Brook or stream running through it All which Lands if you observe them above half the year ly full of water if not under water and I believe it is worth about five shillings an Acre I am sure abundance of it is not worth three shillings and some not worth two shillings an Acre which if my Judgement fail not may easily be drained and laid so sound and wholsome which were but that done as it should be or but according to the second Piece of
Improvement and the directions given in the seventh Chapter treating of draining I dare uphold one Acre would be as good as divers now are in many parts of it but then should you also by the benefit of that Brook and all these gallant rich Land floods that issue from the Hills on one hand and from the Vale especially on the other hand take the advantage and benefit of them also and according to the first Piece Improve it by Floating which may very Feazibly be done according to the direction of the fourth fifth and sixth Chapter whereby it may be Improved to its utmost I verily believe it would not onely make good the utmost extent of my Improvement promised but will afford Hay sufficient to supply all those Barrâ—n parts and that as good again for the nature of it if not thrice so good as now it is I Instance this place the rather because it is so obvious to every one and so well known to most and this offer of Improvement was once tendred to them who could not agree therein but made many of the Objections aforesaid although it was offered them to be done at anoâ—hers cost and charge and they have run no Hazzard but to have come unto so great an Improvement paying the cost and charges if the design had taken after they had seen it wrought unto their hands but there are a thousand and ten thousand Acres up and down the Nation some yeelds more and others less hopes of vast Advancement and all great enough if men would put them upon tryall and great and vast quantities of Land in many Forrests Common Fields and other Heaths Wasts Moores and other Commons subject to the greatest Improvements at little charge which will never be done till men know their own And were every mans part proportioned out to himself and layd severall it would so quicken and incline his spirits that he would be greedy in searching out all opportunities of Improvement whatsoever the Land is capable of As by Lime and Marl Muck Soyl Marl Lime Earth Chalk and Mud c. With many other wayes all which men will infinitely more pursue when they know their own than while it lyes at random And a Monarch of one Acre will advance more profit of it than he that hath his share in an hundred Acres in common which will more naturally fall into the next Piece and there shall be particularly handled whereby great store of Corn of all sorts where now not one Grain is Tilled may be gained which raiseth Straw Stover and Fodder abundantly for raising Soyl Dung or Manure As old and the onely infallible and undeniable meanes to advance any Land whatsoever I shall digress a little because all men talk of Husbandry and good Husbandry too and especially of much excellent Husbandry near and about Londoâ— where Soyl is so plentyfull that half of it is scarce used though so much needed and so unspeakably advantagious and yet so few practise Husbandry to purpose though under such great opportunities but few practise to purpose else what meanes all those Barren Lands though not Common Lands lying within some two miles other three four five or six of the great City where all men are said to be the most gallant Husbands of the Nation to lye unimproved all Heath or Ling or Broom not worth three four or five shillings an Acre surely were there either Soyl to be had at London for Mony as indeed there is enough to be had without nay in many parts men may have Mony to carry it away else were there a River to Barge it up and down men would Improve it to great worth Many hundred if not thousand Acres in Fssex Kent and Surry are neglected certainly Land is worth Money and Money enough too if I be not mistaken about London And then by these meanes when the same shall be laid down to Graze observing but the particular Directions aforesaid it shall feed and fat where before it kept but store Cattell alive much more might herein be said but I 'll say no more for if the Presidenting these experiences will not satisfie and abash the Oppressor I am sure I shall shame my self by my Prolixity and therefore I 'll sope the Black-more no more untill he manifest his offence at what I have said by way of return in the same kind but if he delight more in Rime than Reason or Experiences Take Mr. Tusser speaking in his Husbandry of the great Advantages betwixt Enclosure and the Champion Countries and betwixt Slothfulness and Ingenuity and I will give it in his own Phrase which I conceive may please thee better and he speakes very good Reason also by his Rimas By Master TVSSER 106. Pag. Chap. 52. A comparison between Champion-Countrey and Inclosure THe Country Inclosed Ipraise The other delighteth not me For nothing the Wealth it doth raise To such as inferiour be How both of them partly I know Here somewhat I mind to show Their Swineheard that keepeth the Hog Their Neatherd with Curr and with Horn Their Sheepheard with Whistle and Dog Be fence to the Meadowes and Corn. Their Horse being ty'd on a Balk Is ready with Thief for to walk Where all things in common doe rest Corn-field with the Pasture and Mead Though common ye do as the rest Yet what doth it stand you in stead Their Commons as Commoners use For otherwise shalt thou not chuse What Lair much beteter then there Or cheaper thereon to do well What Drudgery more any where Lesse good therefore where can ye tell What gotten by Summer is see In Winter is eaten up clean Example by Liecestershire What Soyl can be better than that For any thing heart can desire And yet they want ye see what Mast Covert Close Pasture and Wood And other things needfall is good All those do Inclosure bring Experience teacheth no less I speak not to boast of the thing But onely a truth to expresse Example if doubt you do make Of Suffolk and Essex go take More plenty of Mutton and Beef Corn Butter and Cheese of the best More Wealth any where to be briefe More people more handsome and prest Where find yee Goe search any Cost Than there where Inclosure is most More work for the labouring-man As well in the Town as the Field Or therefore devise if you can More profit what Country doth yeeld More seldom where see yee the Poor Go begging from door to door In Norfolk behold the despair Of Tillage too much to be born By Drovers from Fair unto Fair And other destroying the Corn By Custome and Covetous Pates By Gaps and opening Gates What speak I of Commoners by With drawing all after a Line So noying the Corn as it lye With Cattell with Coneys and Swine When thou hast bestowed the cost Look half of the same to be lost The flocks of the Lord of the Soyl Doe yearly the Winter Corn wrong The same in
best publique Advantage Husbandry all thy Lands to the best greatest benefit of the Common-Wealth for in this way of Improvement thou caâ—st not possibly intending the publique good but necessarily the greatest good must follow to Poor thy self and family Order therfore thy common Arable Lands as they also may raise and produce their most plenty to all Concernments and all Wasts Forrests and Heathes that they may produce their great advantage which being so old and restie will yeeld forth Corn in great abundance and after Pasture to double profit Bee not peevish nor let not passion nor old customed corrupted Will prevail against these Advantages for he that Improves not all his Land to this end the raysing plentie and relieving the miserable answereth not the ends wherefore thy self and all thy Lands were given as before I hinted I have no more to say to thee but to intreat thee to remember that passage of the Wise Man viz The thoughts of the diligent bring abundance And if thou wilt be yet unsatisfied be so stil. The fourth Piece of Improvement shews how to Plow and Corn old Pasture Land so as not to Impoverish it and double the Improvement of it for a Time and afterward to better it for ever in a way of grazing and will be as a medium to allay the second Extreme and will discover that Corn shall ever be the predominant profitable staple Commodity in the Nation and sheweth many particular wayes of Improvement of other sorts of Lands CHAP. XIV THere is a second Extreme also which men wedded to their self profit hugg in their very bosome which is so much to their hearts content that they never look what may make most profit to the Publique or good of the Common-wealth themselves or Posterity He is seated in way of Feeding and Grazing with a constant Stock of Breeding and let his Land be fit for one or fit for another use he matters it not he hath received a Prejudice against Plowing partly because of the Toyl and Charge thereof and partly because as aforesaid some men have Plowed their Land so long as they have impoverished it much and some men so long as it is possible it may be many yeares before it Soard Compleatly and therefore let it be Dry or moyst Sound or Rotten Rushey or Mossey Fenny or run over with a Flag Grass or Ant-hills Mossure or wild Time let it keep more or less hee 'l not alter tell him Sir it will yeeld abundance of gallant Corn to supply the whole Country raise great Summes of Money to your Purse and afterward if you yet Plow Moderately it may keep as many Cattell nay more yet nothing takes with him he will have no Enclosure Plowed by no meanes yet seriously weigh these ensuing particulars and then use thy own will and pleasure But to make good my promise herein I must first remise that my Design is mainly upon a second sort of coarser Land betwixt twenty shillings an Acre and ten shillings or a noble out of all which will come a great Advancement to no prejudice at all is a member of one of the fix Pieces of greatest Advancement promised Although the best sort of Land of all will yeeld the greatest profit yet not without some seeming little Prejudice to it and also this will best continue and hold his beauty and strength and Improve upon Grazing rather than lose which the worser sort will not And of this best sort of Lands with the Improvement to be made thereon very Considerable I shall also speak under the sixt and last Piece of all And shall now set forth how the Plowing of all such Lands according to the Design projected which shall be a supply or filling up and running over of the measure of plenty of Corn in case Inclosure should decrease it which I am confident upon the consideration of the aforesaid Reasons thou canst not Imagine and so remove that Extreme also In which Projection I shall tell thee that if thou wilt follow the Rules prescribed thou shalt double the prizes of thy Lands for the present time of Plowing and after lay it down better for Grazing than thou tookest it to plow onely consider that of this second sort there be three natures First sad and moyst strong Clay and cold Second Mixed with divers Earths Third Warm Sandy or Gravelly The first natured Land advanceth it self most be Tillage yet raiseth Corn in abundance also but the two other latter natured Lands advanceth not so much in it self as in that wonderfull increase of Corn it yeeldeth to the Common-Wealth I verily beleeve that Lands of these latter natures are as fruitfull and kind for Corn especially if they be resty and for four yeares may produce as much increase to the Strike or Market as that Land that is as Rich again or twice as Rich for as to the Corning Land it may possibly sometime be too good as alwaies too bad I had far rather make choice of a middle sound warm Land than of the richest and fattest that is for this will yeeld it self and heart more to the Corn than the other and yet this also may be bettered with wisdom used in the Plowing for Grazing also First therefore consider the nature of this first sort of Land and the way of Husbandring it to inable it to produce the promised Improvement And so I begin with that which is of a pure Clay or of a little mixed nature either with Sand or Gravell and yet is of a cold temper and so is neither so wholsome for Cattels lodging nor so fruitfull for their Pasturing Which sort of Land is many times over-run with Ant-hills which are best destroyed this way being opened the Soard taken up and the Coar taken out and scattered before the Plough will make all the Land Plow the better and also lye better and the Mould wil help a little all the parts of the Land they are spread upon And Rushes and Moss in abundance may many times so over-run the Land which are so thick and noysome that they not onely hinder the Earths naturall fruitfulness but the Rushes are so thick and high in many Pastures that the Sheep many times make them for their Refuge to preserve themselves from the heat that oft-times they are sheltered so long by them untill they be lost by the Manes Maggots or Vermine A great prejudice to the Grazier or Breeder All which is certainly occasioned by the Moystness and Coldness of the Lands which will no way more certainly and Advantagiously be removed but by Plowing these Lands which course although by many men it be thought an Impoverishing of the Land yet I absolutely deny the same and affirm both from mine own Experience and the Practise of those that have made tryall thereof that it shall most wonderfully advance the same for present and future Over-Plowing indeed weakens Land Extremes on either hand are
dangerous and destructive Food and Bread sustaineth Nature but Gluttony destroyes it Wine nourisheth the heart but Drunkenness drownes it And as over Tilling and forcing out the heart is worst so I say not then to Plow when the Land is run to moss and to these corruptions is no less bad And being done with wisdom and moderation is far more advantagâ— than not to Plow And this my self have offered familiarly for Lands of this nature worth and quality to give a Plowing or double Rent for the same according to his naturall worth for three or four yeares but not above as hath been conceived the Land hath been able to bear And then after Plowing the very first year to give the old Rent and take a Lease for Ten or Fifteen or Twenty years at the same rate whereby let Ingenuity Judge what Prejudice this may be possibly For the time of Plowing the Lands may yeeld double Rent some more some Rent and half Rent and some one third part more than old Rent All which I conceive is a great Advantage with another secret Advantage interwoven with it as an Adddition to the State which is the raising of a great quantity of Corn to the use of the Common-wealth The setting of many Poor on work The raising Straw which wintering Cattell with may raise such abundance of good Manure Dung or Soyl as may Inrich a great part of the same or some other Lands and were there no other advantage but helping the Common-wealth herein I hope no honest publique spirit would oppose it many Lands lying under this Capacity lye in the South part of Warwickshire and Worcestershire Leicester Nottingham Rutland some part of Lincolnshire Northampton Buckingham and some part of Bedfordshire and in most part of the Vales in England and very many parcels in most Counties of this Nation And this I say again do but observe my Method and strictly trace my Instructions pursue them all along I dare make it good upon most Lands except it be upon that which is a harsh binding churlish nature which wil also admit of a good Improvement though not so good especially when it shall be over-grown with the aforesaid Annoyances CHAP. XV. Sheweth the manner of Plowing and working Lands to so great Advance with two Incredible Presidents of Advance THere is a parcell of Land in VVarwickshire near Stratford upon Avon that is Oaded every fourteen yeares and Corned divers yeares after that and so there may be many more Parcels also besides this I speak of and so I know there is and after that fourteen yeares rest and Grazing Oaded again and Corned also So there are some in Northamptonshire Buckinghamshire and many other parts will do the like And so runs round Grazing fits for Plowing and Corning and Corning fits for Grazing A most gallant opportunitie Doubles the Grazing-rent while under Corning and more under Oading And Grazeth again immediately at a very considerable Rent and might do the first year at old Rent and so forward Would they Plow but three or four yeares according to my direction but they Plow five six or seven Such a Method would please me gallantly advance the Common-wealth exceedingly and prejudice whom I would fain know Abundance of poor set on work Abundance of Corn raised Abundance of Straw which spent and fed upon the Land shall make that up again what ever the Plowing fetched out Doubles Rent and more four or five yeares in one and twenty And so every age near fetcheth in the Purchase And the Land where it was and would be as rich as it was if it be not my directions observed a great Estate raised out of nothing Why not thus in a thousand other parts of this Nation as good Land and better and as suitable to this Advance and not improved to it O Sloth stand by let Ingenuity try a trick or two more and wonder at thy own Ignorance and Weakness and now see how to work it Secondly consider thy Land how it lieth whether round with Ridge and Furrow then use your own discretion for the manner of Plowing for the first year however Plow it as well as you can possibly both clear from Balks and Slips and of such a stitch or depth as the Land will bear however go not under the true and naturall Soyl of the Earth neither plow it too thick for that will be a great prejudice to your second Plowing because your Furrowes will rise most hard and stubborn and so moil both Teames Work-men and Servants as is incredible But if it be Lands and great Balks together then for the Lands Plow them as you please that is whether Ridge-Are or Cast them but for your Balks before you Ridge them all And although it will ask paines cost and hot water yet fail not herein And though the Rushes be thick and strong yet be not discouraged Mow the Rushes in the beginning of Winter as low as you can possibly and then you may with paines and patience a good Teame and good Ploughs with sharp Irons all made true sharp and smooth do it with incredible dexterity fail none of these directions you can not conceive the wonderfull advantage in this exactness And were it so the Land were such as there must be required as much cost and paines with the Spade as with the Plough I would bestow it and never question how it shall answer the same For say the cost be extraordinary and say one Acre cost thee as much overcomming it and laying it round sound and fair as usually thou or others bestow on two or three Acres Yet what is that to the fruit or profit it may produce I dare say one Acre of Corn thus throughly husbanded may be worth two Acres nay three slubbered over and done many times as most men commonly do therein And what is it to lay out a five shillings or a noble extraordinary in every Acre in the Husbandry and reap it by the Pounds in the Crop as I dare say you shall in the two first Crops which are the onely Crops requiring such paines and exactness I could tell thee an Experiment if thou durst beleeve it 't is this I once held a Piece of Land worth nine shillings an Acre and no more to a Graze I gave fifteen shillings to Plow it was great Lands as great Balkes betwixt them full of your soft Rushes and as high some of them as any ordinary Beast and lay very wet The Land conceived by me not able to bear Barley nor never would it was so weak and Barren so cold and Queasie And the neighbours very able Husbandmen round about so discouraged me out of their love unto me as that they deâ—ired me to forbear Tillage of it because it would never answer ordinary cost bestowed on it nor be worth an old Grazing-rent to Plow and that they cleared to me by very clear Evidence as they conceived
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
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
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
Traps of severall Sorts of all which I commend the Pot-trap set in a Bank or Hedg-sow which wisely Set and Planted at all times but especially in the naturall Season of Bucking time about March will destroy them insensibly Onely one thing more punctually observed in the time of breeding will make such a Rout among them which thy self or any ingenuous man may do as is not credible one Spring at or about March one Moal-catcher and his boy in about ten dayes time in a ground of ninety Acres being just laid down from Tillage took me as was verily conceived three bushell of old and young they were not to be numbred most of them being young and naked and this he onely did by casting up their nests which are alwaies built in a great heap of a double bigness to the rest most easily discerned and then immediatly the old ones would come to look their young which he would snap up presently also Yet I desire to speak a word by way of Incouragement to the Ingenuous Husbandman not to suffer so great Dishonour to Husbandry nor so great Prejudice to his Profit as to suffer were it possible one to remain either in Tillage Mead or Pasture and if thou have any Opportunity of Water to be brought over any part of thy Land it will drive them out and destroy them so far as thou canst lead it after them that thou needest not be in any measure troubled with them in thy Meadows CHAP. XVIII And for the Ant-hills more pestilent and Offensive than the former in some Sorts of Lands THere is but a little Addition that I can make to what I spake before of Ant hils destruction But to quicken thee thereto I shall be more large being this is the most proper place I demand what is the reason that infinite great Pastures all over the Nation are so over-run with them Unless men Accompt them Vertuous Indeed some have said they Increase the Land in quantity so they may say with shame for so they do but apparently Decrease it in quality Worth Fruitfulness half some mens Land covered over with them and what is the fruit of them They bear plenty of wild Time Mous-ear Phins Moss and Shar-grase you shall seldom see a Sheep or Beast bite them unless for hunger and then if a Sheep or Beast be cast among them many times destroyed by them I would have these men as are so far in love with them but he intreated to spend a little time to see how his cattell Pasture upon them in the winter and how they burn and scorch in Summer but make experience of three or four Acres banking the fruit thereof never conclude a demonstration by Opinion when experience may so easily resolve the question For Curing of them I shall onely direct the old Piece of banking them but in a more unusuall way and somwhat more speedily than formerly yet make a banking Iron or Spade made very thin or smooth on purpose a little more compass or comming than your ordinary Spades are deeper bitted also A Spade that worketh smooth clean will further this doubly and then begin with the crown or top of thy Hills and so divide thy over Turf into five or six parts and take down the coat or over turf to the very bottom of it the Turf being cut as thinne as possibly thou canst so thou be sure to go under the Roots of the Grass else it will not Soard so thick nor speedily and so turn it down round about the Coar which taken out and cast about thy Land so deep that when thy Turf is turned down even just as thou tookest it up even so lay it down every Turf in its place that the whole compass of the Hill may be rather lower than the Surface of the Ground and but a very little neither yet lower it must be because else the Ant will return more readily again And secondly because then it will receive more naturally the Water or Moysture which will occasion a more speedy Soarding and prevent the Pismires return for the Moysture will not be endured by the old Inhabitants And this done in the proper season which is in the end of November December Ianuary and beginning of February which seasons if thou fail as good neglect them wholly for thy Earth will neither have benefit of the Frost to mould it whereby it will be spread with ease and have some of the Winters rain to settle it into the Ground nor the Turf have fitting time to sodder and work together before the dry weather comes to parch it and loosen it again and so maist lose a great part of that Summers profit which otherwise thou maist receive And if thy Land be clean and and free from Moss Rush and other pelf this will be a sufficient cure as to reducing the Hilliness to Plainess and thy Land to an exceeding good Improvement and so herein I have no more to say unless thy Land be over-run with the aforesaid filth but what is the Burden of my Song and is the onely and sure Cure of most of the Maladies that occasioneth Barrenness which is prescribed as a soveraign Remedy viz. Plowing according to former directions destroyes them all brings meat in the mouth with it takes away the Fins and the Mous-ear the wild Time and Shar-grass if used with Moderation and so I have done with this As for the Sow-Thistle the chief and onely Annoyance of all Thistles as for other Thistles I scarce know how to rank them amongst those grand Corrupters because the opinion of most men are that they are most certain symptomes of good Land as usually they are so are Nettles Hemlocks Mallowe c. and yet I had rather they were all destroyed than remain upon my Lands but because they are of less offence aud we have greater Prejudices than these I 'll let them pass but for the Sow-thistle it is of so great offence that it destroyes all the Grass it covers which is many times a foot round and also so easie to be destroyed that I shall put the Grazier or Farmer upon no other charge or trouble but onely take a little Paddle-staff as a walking-staff and give each one a chop at the Root as he passeth by them which will be rather a Recreation to an active man than a burthen and thus every day a few as they grow in bigness will in few dayes destroy them all Or else a Shepherd or Keeper of the ground as he walks among his Cattell may easily keep them under as he goes about his daily business But since I have found out a more certain way which will destroy them at once spudding up which being done as soon as the Thistle begins to spread but they must be done as it were up by or under the Root which lyeth very overly and if it be not cut
at first chop it may at next by the Root I had the last year a Field of an hundred Acres so thick over-runne that some Acres were as thick that one man could not do above half an Acre in a day I caused them to be spudded up by the Root which was done at two chops with my Spade I was not only freed of them the last Summer wholly but my whole ground is cleansed of them for this year and so I hope for ever I believe the charge thereof was near twenty shillings or thereabout A more certain way I know not For Goose Tansey or Hoar Tansey like Weed I must needs make Proclamation That he that can tell the destruction of it shall do a very acceptable service and for my self I should be very thankfull for the Communication thereof for I can say no more but this Never Plow your Land too long nor out of heart or strength by no means for this occasioneth it to grow more thick and fruitfully and also load your Land hard with Cattell in the Spring and when it doth grow high and strong Mow it down about the end of Midsummer Moon or in the dryest and hottest time of the Summer but the earlier the better and other means I can prescribe none other but in all your Plowings soyl it well with good Dung and lay it down rich and full of spirit I hope some man of Experience herein will help me For the destruction of Fearn I shall prescribe such poor means that thou wilt take offence thereat yet however Experience having proved the truth hereof I will prâ—scribe it viz. In the Spring so soon as it begins to grow up a little above the Grass while it is young and tender take a crooked Pole or piece of Wood about six foot long and let it câ—ook at one end like a Bow or come like a Sithe with which thon mayst strike off all the heads of the Fearn as low as thou canst to the very ground if thou please to make it with a little Edge thou mayst but it will do without And this course thou must take the second time also as soon as it begins to sprout and grow up again which may be within three Weeks after the first And thus having bruised and broken and cut off the head the second time thou shalt see such a destruction wrought as thou wilt admire the Reason I cannot possibly conceive other than this This breaking cutting or bruising of the Stalk doth give a kind of Check or Comptroul unto the Sap which is ascending that it causeth it again to recoyl into the Root and so suffocates and choaketh the life and spirit of it that it descends dowuward and dyeth in the Earth This I am from a very Ingenuous knowing Husband informed which not onely destroyes it the present year but for the time to come also who hath made a more large and full experience of the same than my self hath done But I believe if it prove a very wet Summer thou must not wholly expect the destruction of it But in some parts of the Nation where Fuell is very scarce it wil be thought to be Prejudice by many to destroy it especially upon Commons where they reserve it for Fuell on purpose and is a very great help to poor for Firing yet whether in those very places it be so good as an Acre of Grass I question but there are other parts where it is little worth some places not worth getting yet it is the ruin and destruction of all the Grass it groweth over for whose sakes I have spoke thus much and anâ—sure in most parts it a most pestilent weed CHAP. XIX Treates of the destruction of Goss Broom Brakes c. and how to Improve ordinary Lands by Planting Fruit and shews how to preserve Corn from Blasting and from Crows and Vermine and gives a Description of the Water Persian Wheel AS for your Goss Broom Braking c which in some places wehre Fuell is very scarce and the ground very bad to prescribe a Cure is little Advantage but where either Land is good natured Land or Broom and Goss of little value or else where men desire to Improve their Land to the utmost worth it can be raised to it would be worth entertainment But to give a perfect Cure thereof without considerable Cost bestowed upon it I know none The best means for that is to cut it in the hottest and dryest time of Summer when the Sap is drawn clean forth of the Root and many times this will destroy it But if thou wilt be a good Improver thou mayst destroy it utterly and treble the value of thy land in the doing of the same which is this When thou hast cut thy Broom thy Goss Ling or Braking it matters not at what season Then Plow thy Land and make a Fallow of it if thou please or otherwise take as many Crops as thou pleasest more or fewer all is one to this purpose so as thou be sure to Plow thy Roots up clean and then Manure thy Land with what Compost thou canst get for I believe if thy Land be made Rich and fruitfull with any sort of Soyl whatsoever it will in a great measure mend it But without doubt if thou either Marl it well or chalk it very well and afterward Muck it very well to mollifie and loosen and open the Earth or Lime it well or Mud it well and afterward Muck it over with good Cow or Horse Dung or any other good Soyl as House or street Muck it will not onely Improve it but destroy any of these offences or any other whatsoever that naturally ariseth from Barrenness or Coldness possibly once Manuring may not do it nor indeed canst thou expect so great an Improvement with so little cost because I reckon not that any charge or cost thou expendest whilst thou hast it under Tillage for that brings in thy charge again in thy Crop so not to be put upon this Accompt but that which thou bestowest upon thy last Crop for the last Crop I would advise thee to Manure to purpose and so soon as thy Crop is got Manure it again for it will also bring in thy charge in the Crop of Grass also and again whilst thy Land is young and tender for at this season will one load of Soyl do as much as two when thy Soard begins to grow Tough yea as much as three when it grows Mossy Rushy Filthy This is a most certain Conclusion which I have ever maintained and proved by Practice Ever to lay on Soyl that first Winte after Corning and at one good Soyling have raised an excellent sweet Soard the very first year full as good again as it was before upon the old Soard And this gallant Advancing-way shall certainly destroy both Bryars â—raking Fearn Gooâ—-Tansie also if an thing will do it Goss-Ling-Heath or any thing else
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-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
and then put them all to work for Wagers with those that are in plight and strength Try wha◠service one of them will do you not a third part of that service they did before Nor twice or thrice to Marl together I hold not proper but when your resolve to lay down your Land to Graze be sure at the last Crop you intend to take which may be the fourth fifth or sixth after Marling then Manure thy band wel with Dung which wil so open lighten and loosen thy Land for the less binding and the more light loose and open the more fruitful that it will produce a gallant Glovery and white Hunny-suckle Grass and Graze fruitfully and then if as aforesaid the first year after thou hast laid it down upon the Wheat or mixt Corn-stubble thou wouldest run it over again with Dung it would pay thee treble I cannot forbear inculcating these two because I see it is so little practised in any part of the Nation and I know it to be so wonderfull Advantagious untill thou pursue the practice of them if possibly never lay down thy Land to Graze but thus Let-not-thy Gain or Profit of a good Crop or two hinder thee of ten fold more and dishonour thy Land Prejudic◠thy Posterity defame thy Husbandry Oh that this gallant Principle of Improvement of all Lands to their utmost worth was naturally planted in all mens Breasts t is true to get Wealth and Riches is naturall enough and both in our thirsting and eager pursuit hereof by many lawfull common wayes and by more indirect baser meanes Eateth out the very hearts and bowels of many but thus to indeavour to raise Wealth out of the Earth by ingenuity to raise soyl out of one part of the Earth to inrich another or out of the Seas or any way else by a mean Low charge or poor workinens labour depending upon the Almighty for that blessing is that I so highly magnify not having forgot the old Proverb of making honey of a Dogs so I believe any Land by cost charge may be made rich and as rich as Land can be but not counterpoise one quarter of the charge or labour which I neither affect nor indeavour to hold forth but my resolutions are to perswade all mens Estates or parts to drive on all Designs for the Cōmon good so to Plow all thy Lands as to make thy Lands Fittest and Richest to Graze and then to Plow again when thy Land decayes in Grazing thy Plowing shall far out profit thy Grazing I am confident a man might so Husband the matter as neither of these should hinder each others Fruitfulness but both help on each others Advancement Now the Lands upon which Marl yeelds great increase is upon your higher Sandy Land mixed or Gravelly any found Land whatsoever though never so barren to whom it is as naturall and nourishing as Bread to mans nature and will do well upon any of these though somewhat mixed with Clay but strong Clay in my opinion is most unsutable But an exact tryall I never made thereof therefore am not Peremptory and although many men are of opinion that it can have little Operation upon Wet Cold Moyst Land I say so if there be not a possibility to lay it sound and Wholsome but that I believe thou mayst do most Land by Plowing of it up and Raising of it as high as thy Land will bear it then a good Drain or master Furrow if it will serve if not a deeper Drayning Trench will for Wet and too much Cold and Moysture offends all Corn and Grass also wheresoever as well as Marl but thus done Marl wil yeeld great store of Corn upon this Land also out of question my own president was upon a very wet Land upon a most sharp gravell CHAP. XXII Sheweth the usefulness of Sand and other Soyles out of the Seas and Rivers Sands also are great Inrichments AS for Sands manure I conceive it warm of nature and yet that is not the cause of its Fruitfulness for then would all Sands have the like Operation vertue in them but of ou◠inland Sands especially these which are naturally the Surface of the Earth or else lyeth by Mines in Hils many other parts of the Nation I conceive little Fruitfulness at all however I challenge not Immunity herein from being deceived I may be for I have made no tryall at all therein and therefore what it may do upon a contrary natured Land I know not if any have found benefit I desire to learn it for Reason hath sometime deceived me and so may others but Experience never shall But as for your Sands brought forth by the Violence of strong Land-floods and cast up on Hils Shelves in many Meadows and other places in them is Fruit and Vertue and I question not but the Application of them either to Corn or Graze will produce much Fertility especially being seasonably applied to such Lands as are most different from the nature of it self for whatever causeth Barrenness be sure to provide a Soyl that wil stand in constant opposition to it and so though one wast another and both are weakened yet the Earth is thereby bettered as here the Sand is dry and warm and something inclining to Saltishness the Land I conceive best for this Soyl is moyst and cold and while Heat and Cold Dry and Moyst contest together the Earth steales from both and is much Advanced thereby For in all Soyles and sorts of Earth there is a Combustible and Incombustible Nature each Wrestling with other and the more you can occasion Quarrels and Contention by these that is the more you ad to that which is predominant and so allay the distemper in the end the more gaineth the Earth thereby For I suppose there is a kind of contrarietie in Nature it was ever so from the Fall ever will till all be swallowed up again in one But there is another sort of Sand and this is the richest of all and that is your Sand upon the Sea Costs and in the Creeks thereof which is very rich yet in some parts it may be somwhat richer than others as I conceive for this Reason because al Lands that be bordering upon the Sea Coasts might then be Improved by them but in many and most parts of the Nation the use of it is neglected I dare not have so uncharitable an opinion of my Nation that they would neglect so great and facile an Advantage In Devonshire upon those Coasts it is very rich and upon the Coasts of Cornwall also and upon all the Southern and Western Coasts as this is if there were that fruitfulness as there is in most Sea Sands and is as likely also to be in this unless or untill men have made experience and through experienc◠thereof I for my part shall be loath to have other opinion of it but that
or of Commons near Hedges is very good both of it self and compâ—unded with other Soyl Manure Mud or Straw And very much account made thereof in some Countries nay more than this of Manure that is made of Horse or Cow for some sorts of Land and some sorts of Corn which I conceive is for Lands very Flinty Stony and Gravelly or a little mixed with Câ—aâ— amongst then as also for Wheat and Bâ—rley it is very natuâ—â—ll and is of constant use and great esteem in Hartfordshirâ— Essâ—x Sussex and divers other Countries thereabout and also to great Advantage being put in Execution in most of the Counties in this Nation if ingenuity was of as good esteem among us all as is a base Out-landish fashion for no sooner can that be brought into any part of the Country but it will be dispersed presently into all the parts therof but such as these that are Advantage to all and vastly profitable to the Practitioner Common-wealth are slighted and little practised Earth of a saltish nature is fruitfull especially all such Earth as lyes dry covered with Hovells or Houses of which you make Salt-Peter is rich for Land and so is old flores under any buildings There are many other gallant Soyles or Manure as your Pidgeons dung a load whereof is more worth than twenty shillings in many parts your Hens and Poultry Dung that live of Corn is very excellent these being of a very hot or warm and brackish nature are a very Excellent Soyl for a cold moist-natured Land Two Load hereof will very richly Manure an Acre so is all Dung the more it is raised from Corn or richer matter the richer it self is usually by far as where Horses are highly Corned the richer is the dung than those onely kept with Hay There is another sort of Soyl and that is Swines dung by most men accounted the worst of all nay not worth preserving out of an old received Tradition taken up by most men upon what ground I know not and so generally disliked of almost every one and therfore they will not Experiment it and much an end no use at all is made thereof possibly it came from Scotland who knew they but the excellency thereof they would love the flesh the better for the dungs sake Which to me is very irrationall that an Englâ—sh man who loves Swines flesh so well that more Account and use is made of all the parts of him rather than of the Beef or Sheep yea his very blood and guts are highly prised yet the Soyl of him so much undervalued This Dung is very rich for Corn or Grass or any Land yea of such Accompt to many Ingenuous Husband that they prefer it above any ordinary Manure whatsoever therefore they make their Hogs yards most compleat with an high pale paved well with Pibble or Gravell in the botom where they set their Troughs partly in and some part without the Pale into which they put their meat but the most neatest Husbands indeed Plant their Trough without their Pale or Hog-yard all along by the side of it and for every Hog they have a hole cut the just Proportion of his head Neck and cannot get in his feet to soyl his meat and out thence he eates his meat forth of the Trough very cleanly and sweet they keep the Trough also very clean they have their house for lodging by it self with dry straw alwayes for them to lye in and their cornish Muskings they cast into the yard for that purpose and all Garbidge and all leaves out of Gardens and all Muskings forth of their Barns and of their Courts and Yards and great store of straw or weeds and Fearn or any thing for the Swine to root amongst to make all the Dung they can into the yard for raysing dung and here they keep their Swine the year round never suffering them to go one day abroad and here your dayry Husbands or Huswives will feed them as fat as Pease or Beanes and are of opinion that they feed better and Eatter and with less meat than when they are abroad with all their Grass they spoil Which I did more than three quarters believe but now know it to be true of my own knowledge Some Hog-yards will yeeld you forty fifty some sixty some eighty Load and some more of Excellent Manure of ten or twelve Swine which they value every Load worth about two shillings six pence a Load in their very yards prize it above any other This is practised much about Kings norton both in the Counties of Worcester and Warwick and in many other parts as in Cheshire Staffordshire Darbyshire also I beleeve An Excellent Piece of husbandry I speak Experimentally hereof having made great Advantage my self hereby and do far more prize it than suffering Swine to run and course abroad knowing that rest quiet and sleep with drink and lesser meat will sooner feed any creature than more meat with liberty to run and course about into harms and wash off what they get with their meat with their vexing and running up and down and do advise as thou valewest thy own advantage some good dairies will make the soyl of their Hogyard produce them twenty or thirty pounds worth of profit in a year As for Rags of all sorts there is good vertue in them they are carried far and laid upon the Lands and have in them a warming Improving temper one good Load will go as far as half a dozen or more of the best Cow Dung Coarse Wooll Nippings and Tarry Pitchmarks a little whereof will do an Acre of Land there is great vertue in them I beleeve one Load herof will exceedingly well Manure half an Acre Marrow-bones or Fish-bones Horn or shavings of Horn or Broaths made of Beef Meat or Fish or any other thing whatsoever that hath any Liquidness Oyliness or Fatness have a wonderfull vertue in them let all be precious to thee and preserved for every little adds too and helps in the Common stock and he that wil not be faithful in a little will not be faithfull in a greater quantity as is alway seen by constant â—xperience As for Sheep-Dung Cow-dung and Horse-Dung such old ordinary Soyl I intend to say little in regard the Common use thereof which hath extracted the vertue and excellency to the Common-wealths great advantage onely thus much I shall say by way of advise and reproof from my own Experience 1. By way of advic Prize them according to their worth The Sheeps â—ung is best and a little hereof is of more strength and heart than the others are but whether it arise from the rich and pure nature of the Dung or from the warmth of the Sheeps bodies I know not but I conceive from both because it warmes the Land makes it comfortable And therfore in regard of the worth and excellency of Sheeps
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
of the aforsaid Woods witness the Dutch Precedent I brought before speaking of the excellent and great advantage Wood might yeeld in my discourse about the Oak which I here forebear The use of the Ash is most manifold good for Building and for any work where it may lie dry most prime for Coopers Hoops Rimms for Sives and Wheels as Oak is also and excellent for the Wheelwright Ploughwright and the Husbanman far tougher than any of the woods aforesaid and very rich and profitable and the best Fire-wood fittest for Ladies Chambers will burn exceeding well and sweet though green but all this excellency unless for firing is quirkly spoyled If you fall it forth of season it will be worst of any Wood bare the mistaking of the season the Worm will take it speedily make it the most unserviceable of any wood whatever The onely season is from November untill the end of Ianuary for if the sap begin never so little to arise forbear falling Ash. It spreads his root very large and so is most offensive to your Corn land because it both draws away the hert from the land and offends the plough by his roots You may sow the Ash Keyes which are the onely seed in beds by themselves and they will grow amain two or three good beds will store a Country draw then as they biggon and at last draw all away or else they will destroy your Nurcery plant them in Ianuary or December mould them very well and carefully preserve them cut not off the the top if you would have it to grow in length it being a pithy wood it wil somwhat endanger it but it may prosper well though cut a little off the top spread better and be very usefull both for Timber Lop and firing I have heard of a poor woman that had two or three ash-trees in her Garden hedge and a strong wind came and blew the Ash Keyes all over the Garden that at the Spring her Garden was turned from that to a hopefull plantation of Ashes as green as a leek above the ground the woman was at a great debat to loose her Garden she was loth and to destroy so hopefull a crop she was unwilling at last she resolved to let them grow and now her garden is turned into a nurcery and she is turned a planter and hath ever since maintained it to that use and made many times more profit than she did before The slips from the roots are not so good sets as the sciens or sprout from the Key that is far the best Set beeing straight and smooth barked and free from canker Their removing must be in the depth of winter that it may have a whole winter to fasten the roots the roots may be cut in the removing a little but the strings no whit at all It is a Tree of marvellous great advantage to the Common wealth and very profitable to the Planter Pliny writes that the Serpent so abhors the Ash that it will rather choose to run into the fire than through the Ash boughs but no more of this The Birch tree will grow in the barrennest land it will not prosper in good land it is good for some common meaner uses as to make Oxe yoakes and somewhat usefull for the Turner but most especially for the fire where wood is scarce and deere it may be worth your planting or where the land is so barren that it will beare nothing else Theophrastrus writes of it that it will grow in frosty snowy cold Countries and on the hardest gravelly land and therefore on the barrennest land they plant Birch Pine wood Firre Pitch tree and Larsh The Walnut of another use that beareth a very gallant delightful fruit taketh his pleasure in dry sound wholsom land the usuall way of raising them is from the Nut set or sowed and preserved a year or two in the Nurcery and then drawn forth and planted it will not indure cold nor moysture and seldome any grow in your strong clay land at all if they be well planted and preserved they will make a good shady walk or set in row at a good distance will prosper very well but they require great room and good land it groweth to a great bignes and is very usefull for any houshold use excellent for the joyner and curious for the Gunsmith and the fruit thereof is most delightfull and no less profitable The willow though Homer calls it an unfruitfull Tree yet I shall ingage much in the praise of it it is the quickest of all wood for growing and riseth more in one year than many doe in three And for profit I must question whether any can or may come neer it it comes off with less charge than any and hath a prehemency in lightness and toughness and is very serviceable for spades and Gun stocks and manifold uses more to be kept dry it will scarce ever decry It delights in low ground wet and shady yea the most watery the more suitable and yet will grow upon a dry bank and in the Champion also It is very good for firing also It is to be planted of young sets cut off of any bough about two foot and a half long or somewhat shorter set or thrust into the soft earth or soft ground almost any bog being cast up in great lands and on each side thereof a Trench so deep as to go a little below the bottom of the bog and these set a foot and a half a sunder in strait lines or else two foot asunder the sets being thrust into the earth within eight or nine inches of the top and this to be done in February and beginning of March and in three or four years it will come if it prosper as it should to make windings or hurdle wood in a year or two more to make hop-poles and great sets to bee planted at seven or eight foot length to be set for Trees about eight or nine foot distance by river sides or little brooks or more if you would not have your ground shaded which must bee secured by stakes or thorn or some other means for two years from rubbing or shaking with wind or cattell it is conceived that those planted moyst thrive fastest but those upon a dry land indureth the longest bee sure to cut your sets a little aslope at the heather end and set the biggest end downwards and close the earth pretty close to it when it is set and cut off all twiggs that come out of any part of the set They may be cut as you have occasion to use them at three five or seven yeares The Osier must be planted after the same manner from short sets as abovesaid must be planted upon very good land and then it will yeeld a crop every year may possibly be worth three pound an acre or more is of especiall use for Basket-makers and fishermen
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
I am not able to say any one seed came up at all And I have heard that the Dutch out of an evill spirit lest we should find the same benefit they have have kiln-dryed it Therfore my advice is to send over a knowing man that hath had experience of it knows the right coloured seed to buy and search all the Countrey and buy the best and choicest Seed he can possibly buy for Silver and take care of the bringing of it over too and as for the sale of it if you bring over more than you shall use you need not nor shall not want customers to take it off of hand for I had rather give a double price for such than run the hazard of common Merchants experience But if you desire me to speak my mind from the experience my self hath made I do affirm that our own Seed that is Seed of our own Claver after the first sowing of the Dutch Seed called the great Claver is the best and most certain Seed to grow and so successively from time to time if you can ripen it kindly get it dry and preserve it And this will bring me to my second particular Which is how to get good Seed or recover it out of our own Crop to sow again if you could get it kindly out of the husk which to us as yet is a mystery and we cannot doe it artificially and feacibly as they do in Flaunders The best means we do use is to thrash it out of the straw and then chave it or clense it from the straw as you do corn and then polt it or faulter it as some call it that is beat it over again in the husk and then get out as much of the refuse by chaving of it with a narrow toothed Rake as possibly you can get which done if you would bestow sunning of it in a hot dry season and then rubbing of it will get very much of it for this is all the means that hitherto I have ever heard of in England but I am confident that it may be very feacibly got forth of the husk being very throughly dryed in the Sun upon a Corn-mill Oatmeal or Mault-mill and shelled as they do Oats by a skilfull Miller and no seed hurt as they will Oats and not break the kernel having his Mill-stones exceeding levell hung neither too sharp nor too dull and very curiously set that it cut not the seed nor yet leave too much seed behind which if it prove as I am confident it will it will be a very great advuntage to the Nation This upon the very writing hereof came into my mind which I am very confident of the performance of the work and resolve to make the experience therof if God bless my Crop of Glaver this summer So far as I have hitherto seen or heard our own seed sowed in the husk hath proved the best thicker and certainer than that sowed of the pure seed it self and so shall fall into the third particular The best way of sowing of it I do verily beleeve that if the husk be but once cut and shivered a little that the Seed may but scatter that it may be best to sow it with the husk or chaff because it supplys the filling of the hand better than any thing I can find out will doe with these two Observations 1 That you be sure to find out a fit proportion of husk and seed together to sow an Acre that I cannot prescribe unless I knew how clean you could make it your own experience will discover that perfectly 2 That you be sure ever and anon to stir up the bottom of your Hopper or Seed-lop because the Seed will sink downward and keep your seed and chaff alwaies in an even mixture and composition lest you sow that part thicker in the bottom than that that lay overmost but should you fail of purifying the seed from the chaff for private vse it may do best of all if the hop bowl or husk be but cut and shattered as aforesaid but if you sow that Dutch seed as that you must of necessity till you get into stock of seed of your own then the best way of sowing it must be by mixing of it with Ashes of wood or coal coarsly sifted or with saw-dust or good sand or fine mould or any thing else that wil help to fill the hand wil spread wel forth of the hand but I like not wel the taking it up betwixt the fingers the thumb or the two fore fingers and the thumb because they cannot scatter the seed so broad nor so even as they can out of their ful hand And this I must press as one of the most weightiest things in this Husbandry to have a most especiall care of the even sowing of it your care herein must be far more than in sowing Corn for these Reasons 1 Because the Corn with much harrowing which this will not abide though uneven sowed will be drawn into wants and uneven places and much regulated by the Harrow 2 Because your Corn is of a heavier and fuller and weightier substance and will spread well of it self but this is so small and little in bulk sowes a land that it cannot be discerned how it spreads and whether even or uneven 3. Because the wind though very small hath powe over this and not over the other and how ever you must chuse a calm time as possibly you can many times early in the morning or late at even are your calmest times You may sow it upon any Land you intend to graze upon any bare places in a Meadow or highwaies troden and poched and it will soard them but the usuall way is thus advised when you have fitted your land by Tillage and good Husbandry then sow your Barley or Oats and Harrow them in and after your Claver upon the same Land and covered once with a small Harrow or Bush but sow not the Corn thick as you usually did but if you will lose this Crop you may sow it of it self And lastly because if your Corn should miscarry it is but for one year but this for many and as you sow once you must often reap and will never cover or soard kindly if evenness be not effected to the compleating of which you must have a sober staied Seedsman that carries his hand high takes his steps even and delivers his seed out of his hand at one equall and constant breadth and wideness It is my constant cry to my own Husbandmen to take heed of Ploough-balking and Harrow balking but now I say in a more especiall manner take heed of Seed-balking The best season for it is in the beginning of Aprill or in the end of March rather if it be likely to be a dry season late sowing may do in a fruitfull season but yearly is most certain The fourth particular is how to preserve it and mow it and
well be too precise and better ploughs cannot be made than their Country affords and could better have been devised they would long since With hundreds more so childish as are not worth an Answer but these exceedingly stifle and choak Invention and will do my Readers Imitation of these rude Discoveries CHAP. XXIX The second Generall whereby I shall descend to the description of the severall Ploughes in use and shew you the defects in some and the Advantages others have and what Addition I can give both from my own Observations or otherwise to make up as compleat an easie Plough as my Experience will make out I Shall therefore confine my discourse to three or four sorts of ploughs First the Wheel-plough I mean the double wheeled plough 2. The single wheeled plough and the foot plough 3. The simple plain plough without wheel or foot 4. The Dutch Bastard or plain Dutch plough Many other sorts there are as some alter in their heads some in their Beams some in their Stilts c. and most in their Shares and all almost according to the Country of which they are of al which it were too endless to discourse but I onely name these because I conceive all these usefull in some sort of Land or other and a good husband had need be stored with two or three sorts of them at all times especially he that hath severall sorts of Lands of all which I shall say but little yet a word of each but I shall reserve the main of my discourse for those very particular branches of the plough that shall make out that I shall give ease therto And first as for the double wheeled plough commonly called the Wheel-ploug and is of most constant use in Hartfordshire and many up-Countries and is very usefull upon all flinty stony or hard gravell or any other hard Land whatsoever after it comes to be beyond its natural temper is an excellent good form a very usefull plow and very necessary that al great Corn-masters have one of these for strength that so he may not force his other plows which are made on purpose for lands in a Tillable cōdition so are made more light portable than these will bear to be but these will go and work well with a great strength when other ploughs will not to any purpose and because much addition of ease cannot be given to this plough which I shall not advise to but in the cases aforesaid when and where other ploughs cannot work these Lands being under an extreme And as to such extremes nor none else will any ordinary Rule hold that I may not work against the stream lest I swim alone I will only give you a short description with the draught or figure therof and as any addition may be given to the plough in any of its members it shall not be restrained from an application to this as wel as to any other This is usualy drawn with Horses or Oxen geered double two a breast and indeed so they draw the strongest but tread the Land the more but why they may not be put single in wet seasons or in dangerous times I know not This Wheel-plough is made of a strong clest Ash-beam about six foot long and is contrary to all other beams in the Compass of it the crook or compass wherof looketh upwards and the Land-handle thereof is placed at the great or neather end of the beam as other ploughs are for it is usually made with one handle and the plow-staff is instead of the Furrow-handle and is very long answerable to the length of the handle the length wherof I much approve and could wish it were observed in every plough whatsoever it tending much to the easie and certain holding of the plough The Sheath is made of the toughest youngest Ash and perfect dry that can be got and set with a very good mortess very much forward joynted exceeding true and close into the beam and driven up so exceeding hard with a bragget behind it to hold it from declining that it stands and will to its work in the strongest land whatsoever The Head is pitched as strongly at the neather end of the Sheath and Stilt as can be and pinned through both and the Share is pitched upon the Head at a very deep pitch and somewhat hanging that so the plough may goe much a shore because the holder usually goes two furrows off the plough wider on the near side the plough And as it is pitched deep near a full yard pitch so it is also very broad being near half a yard and that I conceive arises from the former Reason because of the mans going so far wide of his plough Their Shares are made exceeding narrow and very strong and runing out to a very exceeding long small point very well steeled and sometimes they add a Tush or Phin but they make it very narrow also and so it must needs be the hardness and stoniness of the land not admitting of it And the Coulter stands a little above the Share-point and not before it but rather behind it This Wheel-plough requires a great strength and the greater because of the great length they are made of which carrieth such a long and heavy weight of earth upon it that it adds exceedinly to the burthen of it which may be easily removed in some measure by contracting the plough into a shorter and somewhat narrower compass and taking off as much of the weight and load both of Wood and Iron as the strength of the work will bear upon which it is to be employed yet it being a very useful plough upon some lands at some seasons The Figure expect with the other ploughs There is another double Wheeled-plough it is called the Turn wrest plough which of all ploughs that ever I saw surpasseth for weight and clumsiness it is the most of use in Keut Picardy and Normandy and is called the Kentish plough with us The beam may be made of any wood for the bigness of it but Ash is best but the two handles are made of one forked peece of any wood and the beam tenanted into the Stlit below the Fork and so it runs down into the plough-head and is there tenanted and pinned into the head and as for the Sheath that is a good strong peece of dry Ash tenanted into the beam directly down right but looking forward at the neather end and fixed into the Head somewhat as other ploughs are but the Sheath far bigger downwards the plough-head is pitched at a very great depth or else at random for depth being carried with two Wheeles as the former but nothing like so neat nor easie and for bredth it is pitched just under the Beam upon a straight line and so it ought to be as you shall see anon As for any Shield or breast-board it hath none at all on either side the plough as all other have
but a little peece of wood set along the Sheath forward about five inches broad closing upon the Share just as if you would cut a Die in the midst from corner to corner and place the flat side to the Sheath and the edge forward which is their breast-board The Share is put upon the plough-head with a pan half round upward and flat downward and is or ought to be tushed a little on both sides as our ordinary ploughs are and so runs out to a sharp point They have one Wrest or two some one and no more but sometimes two which I should conceive alwaies and at all times best and this Wrest is to be put upon pins one in the Sheath standing just under the Breast board and the other unto a longer pin or round staff fixed into the bottom of the handle as wide as the furrow and this Wrest is no other but as a round stick about two foot long or rather a half rovnd one with two holes in it to put the aforesaid pins into and at every Lands end this Wrest must be turned on the other side so if they have two must they both be altered also and one placed two or three inches higher than the other and the highest is to be placed broader by an inch and half or two inches and sometimes three inches than the lowermost to cast the furrow cleanly over And for the Coulter that is also moveable in the Coulter hole it being made very wide at every Lands end to which purpose they have a strong ground Oak-plant about an inch and half over that is very tough and with that they will having two pins placed upon the top of the Beam one an equall distance from another and both equally distant from the Coulter wrest or writh the Coulter from one side to another and there hold it till they come to the lands end and there turn both Wrest and Coulter And thus you have a rude description of the Turnwrest or Kentish plough and the Figure you should have would it advantage my Reader half so much as it would cost the cutting but they are so common in Kent all the Countrey over and that so near London that I had rather when thou hast a mind invite thee thither to see the thing it self which will give thee better satisfaction than all the Figures can dot Yet thus much learn from hence that the Land that lyeth so upon the side of a hill as there is no plowing it upward and downward may very well be plowed with this plough and best of all and it is especially usefull hereto or it you have any flat levell peece where you would not have one furrow discovered this will do it also the formost Horse or Ox alway going in the furrow and the nearest alway upon the Land and alway double and I am consident it may be cast into a neater form and made to very good advantage the weightiness and ugliness of it I hate but the Turnwrest conceit I like which my occasions have not permitted me to experiment of which I shall say no more at present but that the Turnwrests to cast the furrow is very good and usefull for the two sorts of ground abovesaid I shall now come to the one wheeled Plough and of that I shall give you also somewhat a large accompt because it is an excellent good one and you may use it upon almost any sort of Lands which the Figure and description of the same which shall be drawn into that shape and form that will admit of more lightness and nimbleness than any of the former You may see the use and fashion of it too at Collonell Blunts near Greenwitch in Kent a Gentleman of great esteem and honour in his Country who hath made very many of them The main Plough-beam is very short about five foot long made of very good wood but small and light as may be to which is another false Beam added below the Coulter hole under the other and fixed to it by a staple drove up into the true Beam with a capping upon the false beam end or some other way the form whereof is not much materiall which false beame is that by which the plough is drawn and gives opportunity by a Standard put into the end of it bored full of holes and passing through the Master-beam to let the plough up and down to any gage of depth or shallowness whatsoever and indeed that beam is the guide of it The Sheath is pitched very forward from the beam into the mold of the Share whose Share-mold as I may call it is made as long as the Head should have been is of the same use as the plough-head is of is made of two smal slips not so heavy as the Head would be there being no head at all the Land-handle is put into the Share-mould with an iron pin and so is the plough-sheath also and there fixed fast with an iron pin and the Share forward made like anotheher Share and then just before the Breast-plate is a hole made through the Share and there is rivetted or else with an iron hook put into a long iron slipe which is made an inch or inch and half broad and so comes up to the beam just before the nose of the Shield board and so runs through it and is cottered upon the top of the Beam lying upon the Shield board and the Shield board is compassed a little hollow in the very breast and so from before the middle begins to whelm and wind towards the furrow and so winds more and more to the very end and this Breast-board is placed close upon the Share which is made with a long point and broad or narrow phin as the land requires and sometimes and any time any ordinary Pan de Share may bee used and placed upon a Head as other ploughs are either with a narrow point for gravell or stoniness or with a broader Phin and long sharp point for mixed sandy earthy Land as well as that fashioned Share and be of the same use as I conceive The Pitch of these Ploughs are about or above two foot in depth and about eight or nine inches in wideness This alway carefully observe that the uprighter you pitch your plough to goe the narrower and the more hanging the broader As for the depth I conceive it is not much materiall because it is born up from the false beam till it come to a true working pitch and in the false beam is planted an Iron Axeltree about one inch or a little more in bigness and about one foot long nine or ten inches before the end of the false beam and put in square into the beam that it may stick fast and at the other end of the Axeltree runs a wheel upon it about eighteen or twenty Inches or may be a little higher or lower as you please which guides the plough from that false beam that
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
given thee the product of my experience and from each removed the inconvenience and drawn out the quintessence as I am able If this plough be preserved from any earth cleaving at all to it bee as little in compass as any have the advantages of sharp irons and perfect true Workmanship as that it need no Wheel which is a weight and requires strength and is of no use but to guide the Pitch and this Pitch be made so true of it self as it will goe without it and the Wrest cut shorter which gives much ease and makes the plough go more certain and the furrow turn better and all these are as an addition to it I conceive and know less strength will draw it to which if you please you may add the Dutch Coulter it going somewhat easier and is best for the pure turf without stones but the other being kept as sharp is more certain and not subject to be cast out of the ground and will do exceeding well in wrought tillable land if you keepe it a little before the share that it may cut first and one thought wider also but never within the share 'T is true in irreguler extreme land either for stones roots or hardness I am at a loss and for that end advise to the double-wheeled plough which though it will be no otherwise advantaged to ease than as it is well and compleatly made yet it is for strength to supply extremities and cases of necessity without rule But thus much I will say that take or make me such a plough aforesaid described upon any of the aforsaid lands where the easiest and best ploughs are used which I could wish had bin before now discovered which would have saved me this labour and make tryall of it and as the land is lighter and easier so make the plough lighter and lesser and if it go not easier by a considerable part my judgement fails me I am sure these particulars considered and solidly put in practice throughout this Nation may very well save one third part of the charge and toyle of Horse and man nay in some parts I am confident neare one halfe and if to the best plough it will give but the least addition it is satisfaction enough to me but I very well know it wil save one horse in four and I believe one in three as most Countries use and one man in two All that I have said is but to the pitch and making the body of the plough I say againe if any contend for wheel or foot he need but give his plough a little deeper pitch and he may adde either thereunto as wel as to any other and please himself The description of it shal follow in the end of the 33 Chapter And if you object what shal guide the plough for depth and keep it from stinging in clay ground and how may you let it up and down as the nature of your land requires To which I answer that having both in your plough and plough-irons brought your plough to a true and perfect pitch it wil require but litle help herein yet hereby you may much answer your desire in two particulars 1 In your hindmost gears you may at your chain that is put upon your plough-cock or clevies which ought to be made short linked on purpose to take up or let down as you see occasion 2 Your hindmost or Fil-horse at the back-band which may be to take up or let down you may ease your self at plearsue and so I descend to the last General head CHAP. XXXII Containes the Applicatory part of Ploughs use wherein I shall endeavour to hold forth to what sort of Land and to what seasons or Tilths of Land each Plough is or may be most serviceable IN the description whereof I shall in generall say that when lands come to that extremity of hardness as the plough is forced beyond its gage or pitch of Truth and that nothing but force will overcome it then we must be content to lay by our hopes of ease and all our ploughs whatsoever that were made upon that account for it is concluded that all good Husbands will take their seasons which seasons are chiefly for all their Summers crops in Winter when the Land is moyst workable from November untill March and for all Winter crops the foundation of that work is to be laid in Winter as in the end of December and Ianuary to fallow as wee call it al our strong coarse lay Turf when wee may work it wel and clear it up to the bottom which being once wel ploughed in a right season it will work reasonable well in the hardest season the next plowing and so very well the next and so throughout when it is compleatly plowed at the first which first opportunity if it be overpassed by too much business or sloth or otherwise makes all the rest of our Tilths uncomfortable every common Husbandman knows these things And for this Tilth or season of plowing and these sorts of Lands especially being very rough hilly or banky your Wheeled-ploughs will not work but will be cast out by every hill for this use I shall advise you to the plain plough made a little stronger than ordinary with a true pitch both for breadth and depth and because both wheel and foot too will cast it out at every hill and some men cannot hold a plough without either and possibly thy land may be uncertain Land that is some clay and some sand and some mould each of which will alter the going of the plough therefore in this case let an iron foot be made with a sharp edge like a Coulter forward to the bottom of the shank the foot made flattish and very thin at both edges and a little stronger in the middle rising like a Place fish and no thicker and that will cut your hils before your Coulter and keep it out of the ground too from stinging or drawing into the clayes but yet a good Plough-holder with a good Plough will cast this away also in the roughest lands and meerly with this hinder chain backband of his hindmost horse take it up at pleasure and even play with it too in the strongest workable work when another shall moyl himself like a Beast as we say But to hasten when by a drought you are out of work then I say as afore that with strength your wheeled-plough will doe exceeding well and none like it your double wheeled one I mean and your single wheeled ploughs too being exceeding strongly made will tear up any reasonable ground but in regard the wheel goes but upon an Axeltree and that is fixed but in one end in the false beam end also it cannot be so strong as the other by far therefore I advise every good Husband to one of these the body of whose plough may be made to the same advantages heretofore prescribed As for the casting down a
And secondly it will cost but a little the managing it requires no tillage at all no harrowing it being to bee sowed when and where you sow your Barley or oâ—ts upon that Husbandry without any other addition unless you draw a bush over it or a role either of which is sufficient to cover it after you have sowed it the difficultest peece in the managing hereof is the very sowing of it that is that it may be sowed even for the seed being so very small will require both skill and an even hand to scatter it some sow it by taking it with one finger and the thumb others with the two fore-fingers and the thumb but neither of these do I affect the best way because they cannot spread it so well as they may with their whole hand I therefore prescribe a mixture with Ashes Lime fine earth or some such thing as will best suit with the weight of the seed for could you find out that that agreed both in weight and bigness then out of all question none to that to sow it withall A gallon of this seed will sow an Acre which had need to every quart of seed have two gallous of some of the aforesaid and it must be often stirred together lest that the seed sink to the bottom and sow that part thicker than the other and then cast it out at arms end at as good and even compass as you can possibly This seed thus sowed may grow up among the Corn and yet be no prejudice because it groweth not fast the first Summer but after the Corn is cut it must be preserved And the next Summer you shall receive through Gods blessing a comfortable crop you must be exceedingly curious of the ripening of it if yon let it grow too long your seed will fall out if not long enough your seed will not be perfect nor your stalk neither and therefore observe both the turning of the seed and the ripenining of the stalk for I cannot tel you which of either will admit of a dispensation and as soon as ever you perceive it near up to perfect ripeness you must down with it that is pull it as you do Flax up by the roots and bind it in little handâ—uls and set it up to dry in little stilches or stitches untill both seed and stalk be both dry and then carried away carefully as that the seed be not lost and laid up dry and so keep as you see cause for a good market for it is to be sold for the Dyars use who sometimes will give a very good price but at all times sufficient profit and go far to buy it from forty shillings an Acre to ten or twelve pound an Acre some say more And you may barn it up and keep it and the seed together untill March and then you may get out this seed by lashing or whipping of it forth upon a board or door which reserve for seed the seed is of good value sometimes worth twenty shillings a bushell and sometime ten shillings a bashell and sometimes more or less as markets rise and fall It coloureth the bright yellow and the Lemon colour The stalk and root are both useful and must go together to the Dyar And if this Weed prosper well as questionless it will after you be got into good seed this will make good my promise if it prove worth but forty shillings per Acre the land being not worth above five shillings or six shillings eight pence as either of these will do exceeding well the charges of sowing and all things till you come to pulling it is not above one shilling per Acre the pulling whipping and barning may come to four shillings more the seed may be worth half a crown so that all charges and rent of the land may amount unto less but I will say fifteen shillings then the Improvement will be fourfold if worth four pound ten shillings an Acre fixsold if worth six pound per acre eight fold and much more as some affirm to sixteenfold Improvement This Land though it lie far from Towns Cities yea in your remotest Countries may be brought to this height of Improvement and it begins much to spread and thrives very well in Kent in many parts of it the best place for to get the seed is in Kent clean down to Canterbury and Wy where you may see both the land the growth and discover the mystery therof It is sold by weight so much a hundred and so much a tun weight It is my desire to make publique whatever comes under my experience yet this hath been used this many years by many private Gentlemen in divers parts but not discovered for publique practice but no marvell for that great business of planting Hops that is one of the famous peeces of our Nation hath not any thing been wrote near this fourscore years that I can read of and indeed then was wrote a large discourse thereof but I remember not his name or else I should have here raised up his memorial having done exceeding well thereon but that all this time of so large experience none should get upon his shoulders and a little add to his beginnings is the unthankfulness and shame of your great Hop-masters I fear mens spirits are strangely private that have made excellent experiments and yet will not communicate surely me-thinks plenty and publique fulness should not be so much feared as rejoyced in And so I hope in this I have in some measure supplyed my promise CHAP. XXXV Treats of Woad the Land best for it the usage of it and advantages thereby WOad it is also a great commodiâ—y it layes the foundation for the solidity of very many colours more A Woaded colour is free from stayning excellent for holding its color almost any sad holding colur must be Waoded It hath been one of the greatest Inrichments to the masters thereof untill the midst of our late Wars of any fruit the land did bear It is called Glastum or Garden-woad by the Italians called Guâ—do in Spanish and in French Pastell in Dutch Wert and in English Woad or Wade It hath flat long leaves like Behen rubrum the stalk is small and tender the leaves are of a blewish green colour The seed is likest to an Ash-key or seed but not so long like little blackish tongues The root is white and simple It is a very choyce seed to grow and thrive well it beareth a yellow flower and requires very rich land and very sound and warm so that very warm earth either a little gravellish or sandish will doe exceeding well but the purer warmer solid earth is best Land exceeding rich and though it should be mixed with a little clay will do well but it must be very warm There is not much land fit for this design in many Countries especially your hardest Wood-land parts you have in many of your great deep rich pastures
many hils and hill sides good Woad-ground when the bottom ground will doeno service but your chifest is your home-corse or lesser ground lying near and bordering about the towns Your best and naturallest parts of England for Woad are some part of Worcestershire and Warwickshire Southward Oxfordshire Gloucestershire Northamptonshire Leicestershire some part of Rutland Bedfordshire and Buckinghamshire and some other places here and there all these parts have some admirable Woad-land in them But when it is a quick commodity as now it is dull they will find as much more land as now they will and then more indifferent dry sound warm land will serve but very dry and sound it must be and worth about twenty shillings an Acre to grase at least or else it will not bee worth the Woading And to plow to sow Woad it may be worth as much more as to grase 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
wild hops the stalk will wax red pul it down plant new in their places As for the annuall charge of the Hop-garden after it is planted the dressing the hills the alleys the hoing them the poling and tying to the poles and ordeing the hops is usually done for 40. s. an Acre pulling drying and bagging by the day And so I shall proceed to the drying of them which may be done upon any ordinary kiln with any wood that is dry but not too old or else good sweet Rie straw will do wel but charcoal best of all They must be laid about 9 or 10 inches thick and dried a good while on that fide then turned upside down dried as much on the other side About 12 hours wil dry a kiln full which must be followed night and day then laid up in a close room upon a heap together for a month if your markets will give way to frume and forgive again When the stalk begins to be brittle the leaf also begins to rub then the hop is dryed sufficiently but tread them not while they are hot it wil tread thē to dust thē either against Sturbridge Fair or what other markets thou providest for thou mayst bag them up as close hard as is possible either to 200 or 200 a quarter in a bag as thou pleasest but the usuall bag is 200 a quarter And so I come to my third particular to shew you the profits advantages that are to be gained therby One acre of good hops may possibly be worth at a good market 40 50 or 60 pound An acre may bear 11 or 12 hundred weight possibly some have done more many ten but grant but eight hundred they are sometimes worth not above 1. l. 4. s. the hundred and some other times they have been worth 12 or 14. l. a hundred and usually once in three years they bring money enough It is an excellent commodity if curiously well husbandried I know in cōmon waies of opping a Gentleman hath made of two Acres and a rod 180. l. in one year the same ground hath after it hath been improved let for 50 l. per an to a Hop-master nay I beleeve I could easily presidēt you with 100. l. that hath bin made of one Acre may be more It is usually a very good commodity many times extraordinary and our nation may ascribe it unto it self to raise the best Hops of any other Nation The constant charge of a Hopgarden is usually known men order and dress thē at a rate by the Acre all the year And this very way I fear not to make out my Improvements promised CHAP. XXXVIII Treats of the mystery of Saffron and way of Planting of it THere is another very rich cōmodity wherin our nation hath the glory yet is a ver◠mystery to many parts of it they know not whether such a thing grows in England yet none such so good grows in the world beside that I have ever read of that is Saffron Now Saffron is a very soveraign and wholsom thing if it take right it is a very great advantage for price it hath its ebbings its flowings as almost all things have yet I would fain give encouragement to this Improvement also I shall briefly give you the story of it Good land that is of the value of 20. s. an Acre being well husbandryed tilled fitted or worser land being well manured brought to perfect tillage wil serve the turn but the better the better for the work The season is about Midsummer which it is to be set that being the season they usually take up or draw their sets or roots and old store when they may be had no time else The land being brought into perfect Tillage the best way is to make a tool like a ho in operation but as broad as six of thē it may be 15 or 18 Inches broad with that they draw their land into ranges open as it were a furrow about 2 or 3 inches deep there place their sets or roots of Saffron about 2 or 3 inches asunder which roots are to be bought by the strike sometimes dearer sometimes cheaper and are very like an Onion a little Onion about an inch and a half over and as soon as they have made one furrow all along their land from one end to another then they after that is set begin another and draw that which they raise next to cover this and so as they make their trench so they cover the other they keep one even depth as near as may be which ranges or furrows are not above three or four inches distance that so a hoe of two or three incnches may go betwixt them to draw up the weed which being set and covered it may come up that summer but it dies again yet it lives al winter grows green like Chives or small Leeks and in the begining of summer it dieth wholly the blade of it as to appearance that so one may come take a hoe draw all over it and cleanse it very purely and then will come up the flower without the leaf and in September the flower of it appears like Crocus that is blew and in the middle of it comes up two or three chives which grow upright together the rest of the flower spreads broad which chives that is the very Saffron no maore which you may take betwixt your fingers and hold it and cast away all the rest of the flower and reserve that onely and so they pick it and they must pick it every morning early or else it returns back into the body of it to the earth againe untill next morning and so from one to another for a months space will it bear Saffron you must get as many pickers as may overcome it before it strike in again at the very nick in the morning It will grow to bear 2 crops and then it must be taken up planted new again and then it will yeeld good store of sets to spare which cannot be had no other way it must be taken up at Midsummer and then set as aforesaid And when you have got your Saffron then you must set a drying of it and thus you must do make a kiln of clay not half so big as a Bee hive and very like it will be made with a few little sticks and clay and serve excellent well for this service a little small fire of charcole will serve to dry it and it must be carefully tended also Three pounds of wet Saffron wil make one of dry Saffron An Acre of Land may bear 14. or 15 l. of Saffron if very good but if but 7 or 8 l. it will do the work And one Acre of it wil be mannaged with no great charge I do not beleive it can come to 4 l. an
may be about 4 or five inches long which is also to be planted and is as good as the crown set also if it be any thing a moist time you may take slips from the leaf or branches and set them and they some of them will grow but they may be set betwixt the other to thicken lest they should fail There is abundance of Spanish sets come over of late One M. Walker sells of them at Winchester house in Southwark London but how good they be I am able to say little but hear various reports of them and therefore I will forbear they are bought cheaper than English sets can be but if they bring forth a small Spanish Liquorish I shall not much affect them The third particular is the profit advantage may be made thereby which is very considerable but it is also subject to the ebbings and flowings of the market It must be taken up in winter and must be sold as soon as taken up lest it lose the weight which it must needs do you may make of one Acre of indifferent Liquorish 50. or 60 l. and of excellent good 80. 90. or 100l it is not of so great use as some other commodities are and so will not vent off in so great parcells as others will neither will it indure the keeping for a good market because it will dry exceedingly The Fifth Piece containes the Art of Planting of Rape Cole-seed Hemp and Flax with the severall advantages that may bee made of each CHAP. XL. Only contains the Discovery of Rape and Cole-seeds husbandry THe planting of Cole-seed or Rape-seed is another excellent good meanes for the improving land the Coleseed is of late dayes best estemed And it is most especially usefull upon you Marsh-land Fen land or upon your new recor vered Sea-land or any lands very rank and fat whether arable or pasture The best seed is the biggest fairest seed that you can get it being dry and of a pure clear color of the color of the color of the best Onion-seed It is to be had in many parts of this Nation but Holland is the Center of it from thence comes your good seed usually The season of sowing is at or about Midsummer you must have your land plowed very well and laid even and fine whether upon the lay turf or areable and both may do well but your arable must be very rich and fat and having made yovr land fine then you may sow it and about a gallon of seed will sow an Acre the which seed must bee mingled as afore was directed about the Claver with something that you may sow it even and not upon heaps the even sowing of it is very difficult it grows up exceedingly to great leaves but the benefit is made out of the seed especially The time to cut it is when one half of the seed begins to look browne you must reap it as you doe wheat and lay it upon little yelmes or two or three handfuls together till it be dry and that very dry too about a fortnight will dry it it must not be turned nor touched if it were possible for fear of shedding the seed that being the chief profit of it about a fortnight the seed will be dry it must bee gathered in sheets or rather a great ship sail-cloath as big as four or six sheets and carried into the Barn erected on purpose or to that place designed on purpose to thresh it that day you must have sixteen or eighteen men at a floor four men will thresh abundance in a day I have heard that four men have threshed thirty Coume in a day The seed is usually worth sixteen shillings a Coume that is four shillings a busnell sometimes more and sometimes less It will if exceeding good bear ten Coume upon an acre or five quarter if it be but indifferent and will not bear above seaven or eight Coume of an Acre It will raise a good advance upon your lands It is a commodity you will not want sale of the greater the parcell is the better price you will have It is used to make the Rape-oyl as we call it The Turnep seed will grow among it and it will make good oyl also you may sell a thousand pound together to one Chapman it is best to bee planted by the water or near it It cannot be too rank it Eadish or Stubble will exceedingly nourish Sheep in Winter It hath another excellent property it will fit the land so for corning for Wheat it may produce a crop as good or better than it self and for Barley after that The charge of the whole Crop I conceive may come to be betwixt twenty and thirty shillings an Acre and a good Crop may be worth four five six seven or eight pound an Acre the least is a very good improvement because it will doe excellent well if well ordered and a kind season upon land the very first year after recovery when it will do nothing else if it can be but plowed when other things as corn or grain may be hazarded and so have you this Discourse though in much brevity your experience will teach you what euer here is wanting and my weighty business wil not suffer me to supply Shewes how good a publike Commodity Hempe is with the mannar of planting CHAP. XL. AS for Hemp that is a very good Commodity and would be farre the better but that it is not mad so Nationall yet as necessary I am confident as any thing amongst us is yet but not being intended nor incouraged as a staple or grand businesse as it might and Flax also and that more especially then this but both joyned together and a publique stocke erected either in the general or else in every particular Township I know not but why the product thereof might not onely bring in a constant considerable profit for the stock and the poore in every Parish maintained both comfortably in a calling and livelyhood especially all women kind and children but they fitted and brought up to a Trade and way that may render them publikly usefull to the Nation I should undertake to make it out that this very way of it self would do it if it would advance the work Why should we runne to France and to Flanders and the Low-Countries and I know not whither for thred and cloath of so many sorts and fine linnen and cordage or rather why should we not if we be at want of Work-men to make out to that worth and goodnesse fetch here and there a workman from thence and so preserve or rather raise the Trade wholly within our selves had we but Law put in execution to constrain people to labour and some way to perswade men to use their Lands to the best advantage to themselves and publike what should we want We have the Commodity grows exceeding well among us we see we have and can make excellent
good cloath better for use then theirs Object You will presently say we want Work-men especially such as do it well Answ. To that I shall answer people wee have enough you will confesse it and some that can worke well too where is the fault then I being not a Tradesman can scarce tell you but onely will desire an answer to this question and then it may be I shall resolve you what hath made cloathing common among us and made Worke-men at it too but the very Trade of it the experimenting of it to purpose the carring it on with power and purse that by this meanes where ever it is planted there needs no work-folks they are ready to come from all parts where work may be had then that is supplyed It is true at the first setting up people are raw untaught and not very willing to learne and may be as ever it was in all new inventions or setting up new works you may suffer some losse and spoyle yet if this be backed with publike countenance and authority I feare not any suffering at all but if you should you are but in the condition of all honest publike ingenuous spirits And secondly I shall answer that nothing ever did or will come to perfection without great experiences constant practises and great scrutiny into the bowels of it and that will draw forth the mystery and that is the profit and glory of all Trade and Merchandise and then why we should not make fine cloath and almost any cloth of our Flax and raise our Flax to a great betterment too I know not I could name many things in England now are made as good with us as few yeares since wee could not but were made altogether a beyond seas and we supplyed from thence but grant wee raise not so pure a Flax then buy your Flax from the East or Best Countries endeavour the Trade of making your finer cloath thence and your courser from our own untill our Flax come up to theirs in goodnesse which I am confident will refine exceedingly both in the growth and workmanship of it however use all meanes as to preserve the Trade of cloathing Linning so far as our owne native Hempe and Flax will I have heard of most pure cloath some Gentlewomen have made of their own flax and Hemp. I shall now proceed to a briefe discription of the way of raising it As for the seed of it that is familiarly bought and sold in all places in the season but the best seed is your brightest which you may try by rubbing of it in your hand if it crumble with rubbing it is bad but if it still retain its substance and colour it is good The best land for it is your warme land your sandy or a little gravelly so it be very rich and of a deepe soyl will doe well as for your cold claies as some affirme to bee good for Hempe they exceedingly abuse the Reader it is as tender a seed as any I know and to make good my affirmation as to the land consider the land where the best Hempe of England grows which is upon the Fens and Marshes and especially in Holland in Lincolnshire where the land is very rich and very sandy and light but their morish land though rich is not good and yet the very best land they can picke there is but good enough for it yea that very land they are forced to dung and soyl exceedingly too after two or three crops or else it will not doe Nettleplots and Thistle-plots and land over growne wiâ—h the rankest weeds if well purged there-from will doe exceeding well for Hempe The quantity that is to be sowed upon our statute Acre is three strike or bushels and harrowed in with small harrowes the which after the land is made exceeding fine as the finest garden then in the beginning and middle of April is the time they sow it some sow it not till the end of April but if it be any thing a kindly year the earlier the better and so preserved exceeding choicely at first for feare of birds destroying of it as you see in many Countries but yet there where they sow so much they never value it bee carefull that cattel neither bite it nor lie upon it for though some say it matters not for being kept from Cattel so they may save the fencing of it yet I say if it be either bitten or else but a beast lyeth upon it after it is come up it will destroy it The season of getting of it is first about Lammas when a good part of it will be ripe it may be about one half that is a lighter Summer Hempe that beares no seede and the stalke growes white and ripe and most easily discernable which is about that season to be pulled forth and dryed and laid up for use or watered and wrought up as all hous-wives know which you must pul as neatly as you can from among the rest lest you break it for what you breake you utterly destroy and then you must let the other grow for seed untill it be ripe which wil be about Michaelmas or a little before may be a fortnight before when seed and stalke are both full ripe and you come to pull you bind up in bundles as much as a yard band will hold which is the legal measure but for your simple or Summer Hempe that is bound in lesser bundles as much as may be grasped with both your hands and when your Winter Hempe is pulled you must stocke it up or barne it any way to keep it dry and then in the season of the yeare or when you please thrash it and get out the seed and still preserve your Hempe till you set to the working of it which instead of breaking and tawing of it as they doe in most parts there they altogether pill it and no more and so sell it in the rough but I leave all at liberty for that whether to pill or dresse up by brake and Tewtaw As for the seed an Acre will beare is two or three quarter and it is there sold but usually about a mark a quarter sometime ten shillings and sometime less this yeare it was sold for twenty shillings a quarter if good great Hempe then store of seed else not but in many and most parts of the Nation it is sold for about four shilling a bushel Your fimbled Hempe is not worth above halfe so much as your other sometimes it is subject to weeds to carlock and muckel-weed which must be weeded but the best way to destroy them is to let you Hempe-land lie one yeare fallow I onely speake of Holland the cheapest place for it and the first fountain of it but generally throughout the Nation it is of far more worth and value The richer your land is the thinner the poorer the thicker you must sow One Acre of good Hempe may bee worth five six
seven or eight pound an Acre sold as soone as pulled and gathered but if it be wrought up it may come to eight nine ten or twelve pound or more it is a common thing in use every one knowes the manner of working of it to cloath It maintaines many people in a good imployment and ought to have more publick incouragement given to it not so much becaâ—se of its advance of land as the poor poople of the Land CHAP. XLI Onely speakes to the husbandring Flax so as to make it come up to as much of the improvement as we can FLax it is a very good Commodity and I shall endeavour to incourage all ingenuous men that delight in the common good thereto as much as may be especially all such as have suitable lands therefore upon this account because it is as I may call it a root or roundation of advantage upon the prosperity whereof depends the maintenance of thousands of people in good honest and laborious callings and were but this very peece of husbandry advanced the sowing and raising of it according to the capacity the lands of this Nation will afford I dare affirme to hold it forth against the stoutest opponent that it would maintaine neare all the wanting people of this Nation A volume is too little to containe this vast Discourse yet take an abstract of it which for the more methodicall demonstration shall be held forth under these heads 1. The severall Lands capable of improvement hereby 2. The many people capable of imploymen hereby 3. The best experiences of plantiug and raising to the best advantage 4. The profit accrewing there from both general and particular 1. As for the land capable of raising good flax is any good sound Land be it in what Country sover it will if the land be good either earthy or mixed of sand or gravel and old land it is the best that hath lyen long unplowed it had need come up to the value of a mark or near twenty shillings an Acre that is your kindest slax-land but I know where they give three pound an Acre to sow flax upon within a mile of London and yet in most Counties of England I know as good and kind land for that husbandry as any other and at London they have work-men dearer too and yet can raise though they give so dear a very considerable profit out beside Again any of your good Arrable that is in good Heart and rich that is perfect sound drie land is perfect good flax land Some parts of Essex from Bow and Stratford down along the way by the Marsh side a great part of up-land thereabouts is good flax Land so is there very much in Kent all along on the other side the river by the marshes side is good naturall land thereto in very many parts about Maidstone in Kent where the best thred is made of England is excellent good flax-land so is there also in most Counties as Warwick-shire Worcestershire Northampton c. 2. And that I may give the more incouragement here to spin I say as heretofore it is a commodity that will set abundance of persons upon an honest and profitable calling from the first preparing the land untill the fruit of your labours come in one acre of good flaxe may maintain divers persons to the compleating of it to perfect cloth Consider how many Trades are supplyed hereby 1. The Land must have the same husbandrie of plowing harrowing and sowing as lands have for corne there 's the husbandmans businesse sometimes yea many times weeding too then pulling stitching and drying then rippelling and laying up and preserving the seed then watering it either on the ground or in the water then drying it up and housing it and kilne-drying it then breaking and towtawing it then hetchelling and dressing it up then spinning of it to yarne or thred then weaving of it and bleaching then it returnes againe to the good house-wives use or Seamster and then to the wearing and usage and all these particular imployments be upon this poore businesse halfe a dozen good callings and imployments this makes out and therefore many persons it will imploy and we both want cloth and our poor work 3. Now as to the carrying on this design and making the best of this improvement I shall here give in the best approved way of planting of it as is yet discoved as for the Land let it be good and well plowed both strait and even without balkes and in due season about the beginning of March or the latter end of February And as for the seed the true East Country seed is far the best although it cost very dear one bushel of it to sowe is worth ten bushels of our owne Couetry seede but the second crop of our own of this Country seed is very good and the third indifferent but then no more but again to your best seed The quantity of it is about two bushels upon an Acre at least some sow a pecke more but I conceive two may bee enough but of our seed it will require halfe a strike more then of the East Country seed you may buy it in the Seed-mens shops at Billingsgate our Flax men in former dayes did not sow above half so much or little more but now their experience hath brought them to this pitch At my first knowledge of the East-country flax seede for the perfect discoverie of the goodnesse of it I sowed one land the ridge or middle of the Land with our own Countrie seed and both the furrowes with this Dutch or East-country seed our seed was incompassed with this as with a wall abought it it so much over-grew it in height The season of sowing of it if a warme season in the latter end of March but in the warmer parts as Essex and Kent I conceive mid March may doe well but in colder parts as down towards Warwick-shire and Worcester-shire the beginning of April may be early enough and if it should come a very wet seasoÌ„ you must take care of weeding of it also and in the ripening of it you must be careful that it grow not till it be over-ripe lest the stalk should blacken or mildew yet to his full ripeness you must let it grow the which you may perceive both by the harle and by the seed some will ripen earlier and some later as you sow it earlier or later but against it be ripe be sure to have your pluckers to fall in hand with plucking of it and then tie up every handfull and then set them up upright one against another like a Tent till they be perfectly drie and then get it all into the baâ—ne or where you please to preserve it for use it is indifferent whether you ripple it or take off the boles of it as soone as you bring it home or when you intend to use it As for your watering of it whether in
the water or upon the Land that I shall not determine peremptorily but thus much I say that both may doe well and he that gets store will find use of both because of the one you make use as soone as your flax is pulled and then you need not stand so curiously upon the drying of it but after you have got your seed you may water it and the watering of it opens and breakes the harle the best but then you must bee carefull of laying up your seede that it heate not nor mould and that which you water then may be a winters worke for your people untill the Spring come on and then get it forth upon your grasse Land and spread it thin and turne it to preserve it from mildewing and keepe it so untill you finde the harle bee ready and willing to part from the core and then drye it up and get it in for use As for the drying of it a kilne made on purpose is best so that you be carefull of scorching of it this will make greate riddance of the same and to them that have greate store sunne-drying will never doe the feate though it may doe well for a small quantity or the flax of a private Family As to the working of it you must provide your Brakes and Tewrawes both the one and that is the brake which bruises and toughens the harl and the Tewtaw that cut and divides out the coare if you use the Tewtaw first it may cut your well dryed flax to peeces yet both do best yet the brake first These things are common and known to many in most Countries but not to all and least to those that have lands most capable thereof It will cost the Workmanship of it betwixt three and four pound an Acre to bring it up to sale it lyeth much upon the workmans hand and therefore far more to be advanced by how much the more it raiseth imployment for many people to live thereby Where wages is great it comes off the hardest yet where it is carried on to purpose people flock hard that want work and because of constancie will worke at easie tearms else how could they possibly do good of it at London or near about it where they work at double rates but there have I seen the best flax I ever saw 4. Lastly the benefit that may be made hereby an Acre of good flax may be worth upon the ground if it be the first East-Country seed seven or eight yea possibly ten or twelve pound yea far more the charge whereof beside the seed untill it be ripe may not be above ten shillings an acre which if you work up to be fit to sell in the Market it may come up to fifteen or sixteen or near twenty pound in the market but to bring it so high as thirty pound as in Flanders I dare not say But an acre of our Country seed will hardly come up to above three pound or four pound an Acre unlesse very good indeed to which if it amount unto and no more upon the Land it will make a good advancement of the Land which may be Land and Seed and all charges may come to about fifteene or sixteene shillings an Acre the seed being not worth above two shillings a strike I shall say thus much more that I verily believe wee are not come up to that perfection wee may attain unto in this mystery because I have heard of some Gentlewomen that have out of their owne Flax and Hempe drawne out a thred exceeding pure as pure and fine againe as our ordinary Traders therein doe and have made as much more cloath of a pound of both and that both strong and more serviceable then the strongest and best Outlandish Hollands and I am confident if this mystery doe but receive incouragement from Authority and it made more tending to publike good the maintenance of the poore in worke and sequestring the Trade so farre to our owne proper Natives as may be a sufficient Magazine of work for them I am sure we have land suitable enough to bear it and to afford sufficient profit and will be a considerable advance unto the lands throughout the Nation And so I hope I have supplyed in some measure more of our deficiencies that really are and are said to be in our English Husbandry The sixth and last Piece of improvement is for the discovering what great advance may be made upon our Lands by a Plantation of some Orchard-fruites and some Garden-commodities CHAP. XLIII Treates how our Lands may be advanced by planting them with Orchard-fruites ANd for making good the Improvement promised I shall shew these two or three things 1. That abundance of Land is planted in many parts of this Nation and thus improved 2. That there is land and very much in all other parts that may be improved 3 The fruits especially by which they come to such an improvement 1. That there is such land alreadey improved none dare deny to that height as is affirmed many will question I therefore doe in briefe affirme for my president that VVorcestershire part of Glocestershire and part of Herefordshire will speake out this truth some men having their Plantations both of Apples Pears and Cheries and so ordered that they hinder no more the growth of grasse then the compasse of a tree that grows upon it nay some question whether with their shadinesse in Summer and warmnesse in Winter they better not the land farre more and their very growing upon it doth not inrich it they having usually the earliest grasse and many times the greatest swath and burthen and will keep more cattell too And certainly where they are formerly planted and grow not too thicke I cannot see reason to the contrary as for the land I know very much if not most of it was worth not above tenne shillings some lesse or thirteen shillings foure pence an Acre at the first now the grasse of most of them thus regularly planted and draw as they grow in bignesse that so they may never grow to touch one another by a good space when they come to the best age for when they come to decay plant new ones in their roome and downe with them to the very grouud I say the grasse of such Orchards or Pastures is worth thirty shillings some forty shillings some fifty shillings and some more and the fruit that groweth upon the Trees planted therein may yeeld some three pound some five pound yea some will come up to seven or eight pound an Acre But come you up to Kent Essex Surry Middlesex and part of Suffolke where naturally the land was worse then in those parts by farre I dare affirme there are many Orchards planted there upon land that was not naturally and really worth above six shillings or eight shillings an Acre when they began the work and that some thousands of Acres too and with some good soyle and
good husbandry dividing quicksetting and laying dry and sound their land and gardening some and planting others with kernels of all sorts of fruits and all sorts of woods and sets and trees have brought many plots some containing five or six acres some to ten or twelve and some to twenty or thirty acres in one plot to that improvement that they have made twenty pound an acre yea if I should say forty or fifty pound I should finde sufficient testimony to the truth hereof and all this while but in preparation for a plantation too their young trees being not come yet to beare nor to shade the land and then they lay it downe to grasse but say the land was worth twenty shillings an acre and some is and very much worth more which is so much better it will prosper and so much lesse cost need bee bestowed and yet by all will be made good the improvement promised These Orchards many of them are worth to grasse forty fifty or three pound per acre and so set their fruite will seldome yeeld them so little as double or treble the worth of their grasse many times five or six fold yea possibly ten fold and what is this towards the making good my improvement promised If this land was not worth above six or ten shillings an acre as very much was not then it is fourfold doubled in the grazing and if it treble in the fruit then there is sixteenfold and if it come up to sixfold in the fruit then there is two and thirty fold I will go no higher but I might and many doe and will the cost bestowed for the two three or four first yeares may be was three or foure pound an Acre may be five pound but then the Garden fruits which they raised upon them the sets the grafts the trees and fruite they raise upon it may bee possibly worth as much more as it is worth when it comes to be laid down to grasse but then it costs no more then mowing their grasse and gathering their fruit and yet during the flourishing condition of this Orchard it shall hold forth the improvement aforesaid Object But some will say this may be true in some few Acres and by some few excelling husbands but in very few persons and upon fâ—wer lands Answ. If any why strive not others after the same pitch why runne not others to the same mark if one Acre why not two if there be one so good a husband why imitate wee not him wee know one man may have as good meanes to the same end as another If one Tradesman get an excellent commodity or attain to an excellent mystery in his Trade do not all men study it thirst after it and endeavour it and may gain it Object You will say our land is not so good there is little such and most lands in England are not for that use and in some Countries little or none at all Answ. To which I answer neither was theirs as good or knowne to bee so good and that is all one untill they made the experiment It is but very few ages since these Countries have been so famous every age hath exceedingly improved and this very last age as it were almost doubled what former ages came to and truly when you have made the same experience you will finde your Land as good and by good husbandry with a strong resolution to the same end will bring forth the accomplishment of the same fruit and so I shall proceed to an answer of the second part of the objection which is there is little such land or little fit land for this use in many Counties in England which brings mee to my second particular which is to shew that there is land as well in all Countries and Counties as those lands of Kent Essex Surry c. and very much in many where is no improvement at all made thereon and that I thus demonstrate by inquiring into the nature and qualifications of these lands and these lands are many of them exceeding dry sound warme lands some perfect sand some gravelly some of a very shallow mould not above halfe a spades pitch before you come to hunger and barrennesse some exceeding stony some of them are upon a very rich soyle as by the Marshes sides some of them are upon a cold spewing wet clayey land but made rich and warme by soyle and husbandry and some upon a perfect clay cold and barren and yet upon them all you have exceeding great advances as aforesaid And that there is some such natured lands in all Countries and in some all these natured lands directly no man will deny and also meanes and soyles to inrich them though not so much but yet I am sure many times more then is improved to so good an advantage and more may be made and gained to inrich them if wee grow industrious And now that I have proved there is such natured lands what remaines to cleare the full demonstration but that as great advancement may bee made in those Countries as in these Why this remaines that they are not under so warme a Climate as those Lands are which is true and this is all that can be said to which I answer 1. Ans. That the climate is much to the drawing forth these fruits and especially to the drawing them forth so early but yet not sufficient excuse to hinder the work for then why should Glocester-shire Worcester-shire and Hereford-stire be so famous I am confident they are as natural and as fruitfull this way as these Countries are only I beleive they are not so quick for sale nor so early ripe may be by a fortnight of dayes which is nothing And the climate is as cold in these Countries as in almost any except two or three of the Northern Countries in which Countries are very much good fruits and many good Orchards too and why not more I know not I doe confess Cherries grow upward more rich early and more profitably then in other parts yet Worcester-shire comes near them but what if they come not up so high they may come up high enough and wee see they will grow well and to good profit in other parts as well as here But say there was not a cherry growing in any of those parts I should not much matter they being only for delight and pleasure yet if good Peares for Perry and Aples for Syder would prosper well which I am confident they would if industriously experimented which would be for the great supply of the poor the whole Countrie for every Town House almost hath an Orchard bigger or lesser that doe and will bear both Apples and Peares of all sorts whatsoever and all Countries have Lands naturall therefore as well as these where there is so great improvements made and therefore I know neither nature nor reason against the same nor nothing else
as well as ours I shall make bold to discover them to my intendment for as to his I shall never attain and that is to incourage their Plantations because Lands may be highly advanced by them and when thou hast the Art of planting dismysteried to thee at large as will be very shortly fall upon them And because Land of great quantities cannot be advanced to that height as lesser parcels which are within the power and purse of the Gardner which with his constant paines watching toilings hazards and adventures he runs he may make one hundred pound possibly out of some one Acre of Land if his commodity prosper well as some have done but in the case of non prosperity some are half undone again as if it thrive not exceedingly in the growth prosper not as well in the ripening escape frost and thieves and meet not with a good market what it will come to then I determine not neither doth Mr. Speed consider of these things and how then it would do when thousand of Acres should come to be planted therewith I know not I shal leave it to him to resolve and onely take out Turneps mainly intending my design which will be sowed at small cost and charge and grow upon indifferent Land and bring forth great increase and are of more generall use and in case much Land be sown therewith and they come to so great plenty that the Markets will not carry them away at such a proportionable rate as the Gardner can afford them then may they be disposed of to the feeding of sheep and Cattel which they will doe and to good advantage too and in a dear year to make bread thereof half meal half boyled Turnep mixed and wrought together into dough and kneaded and made into bread will make a good and delightfull food as hath been by many experimented already yea as Sir Richard Weston affirmed to my selfe he did feed his swine with them though all men hold the contrary that Swine will not eat a Turnep so I say too no more than a Scot will Swines-flesh yet the boyling them at first and giving them to his Hogs in good wash and afterward all boyled that at the end they came to eat them raw would run after the Carts and pull them forth as they gathered them So that upon these accounts and because I know it will bring Land to a good advance as unto 8. pound 10. pound or possibly 12. pound per acre I propose this especially but for the fuller discovery hereof in the mysterie I leave that to be more fully discussed in the Art of planting and should that fail of seasonable comming forth or of a full discovery it is but about eight or ten quarts of seed sowed upon an acre of dry sound land indifferent rich land well plowed digged and harrowed as for corn and then after sowed thin and even with some composition with it then slightly covered with a bush some sowed early where the land will do some late when other crops are off selling them or spending them at a Market-priâ— they will bring forth the advantage promised and so I have indeavoured to supply this deficiency in husbandry also in some poor measure the want of improving our garden-fruits our Lands being as capable of improvement this way and as high as is by their Brabant husbandry and so am come to my desired end at last all which I commend to thy patience and thy self and it to the word of our Lord Christ his blessing FINIS A Table of the most principall Heads and branches of this Discourse as they are laid down under the severall main Peeces of the Book and illustrated in that Chapter discoursing each particular Peece Chap. I. SHeweth the antiquity and necessity of Husbandry pag. 3 4 5. Chap. II. The causes of barrenness as they are in men 6 7 8. The causes of barrenness as in the land it selfe 9. to 14. The first Peece contains the 3 4 5 and 6 Chap. Treating of the Remedies against Barrenness and particularly of Floating and Watering Land Chap. III. Sheweth what Land lyeth best for advancement by water 17. Of impounding water upon land in what case 18. Of what nature the best land for watering is pag. 19. 20. Chap. IV. V. How and where to begin your first watering and how to proceed 21. How to make the floating and drayning Trench 22. What makes the watering land so fruitfull 23. The best flowing season upon all lands 24 25. The advantages of watering land 25. Presidents of watered land ibid. 26. As well too much trenching as too little ibid. Chap. VI. A larger explanation both of the floating and draining Trench 27. How to prevent heaping of the earth in trenching 28. The manner of levelling land by the plough to water 29. The speediest way for soarding Land after levelling 30 31. To level by spade and what a man may do a day 30. The second Peece hath the 7 8 9 10 Chap. Containing draining Fen reducing Bog and recovering Sea-land Chap. VII To drain a bog and where the water lieth 33. What makes a bog and how to carry a drain 34. 35 36. Best and certainest way to dâ—stroy the bog totally 36. The great prejudice by crooks and angles in water-courses ibid. How to make deep drains without any danger to cattel ibid. Floating a bog best destroyes it pag. 37. Chap. VIII Answereth severall objections made against the probabilities of so great advance by floating 38 Cutting Water-courses streight no small advantage 42. Some Mils destroy more than they are worth 43. Chap. IX Sheweth a brief and plain discovery of the most feacible way of Fen-draining or regaining drowned lands or in bounding of the Sea from it 45. Hindrances of Fen-draining 51 52. The cure or best and speediest way of reducing drowned lands unto perfect soundnes 53. The best way to improve drowned lands 58. Chap. X. Directions to make and use severall Tooles or Instruments which shall much facilitate the work 65 The manner and form of a true and speediest Levell that I can devise 66. The Trencheng Plough 67. The Turving Spade 68. The Trenching Spade ibid. The Paring Spade 70. The use of the Paring Spad 71. The Third Peece hath the 11 12 13 14. Chap. Sheweth to inclose without offence prevent depopulation that is most common attendant and appurtenant to enclosure how to make severable Errable coÌ„mon field Lands common Heaths Mores Forrests Wasts to every particular Interests the Common-wealths great advantage Chap. XI Treateth of Improving Land by Pasture Reproves Depopulation proves excellent Advantages by Inclosure and taketh away the usuall Scandalls laid upon it pag. 72. Chap. XII Sheweth the Land capable of Enclosure and the Method of it how it advanceth the Publick-Weal and all particulars interests 77. Chap. XIII Sheweth the tillage and the great profit thereof and the great Advance is made
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
generations and improve our Principles for the common good which two aforesaid causes if they be not removed will never admit of the removall of the subsequent causes A third particular cause in man of the Earths unfruitfulness is want of severe punishment of Idleness the Mother and Drunkenness the Daughter or the putting in execution of such good and wholsome Lawes as both God and man have provided therein As also not raising stocks in all Countries as a Magazine or treasury of work and labour for those that want it And those other Lawes for punishing of Rogues and Vagrants that wander the Country and compelling and constraining youth and idle people to some callings All which would both put them on to more Ingenuity and the Gentry and Yeomanry of the Nation would be much induced to Invention and expatiating themselves in charge and treasure to maintain them wherby these horrid sinnes of Idleness Lust and Laciviousness would be checked and those Drones and Caterpillars the bane of a Christian State and shame of a Christian Nation would not so swarm amongst us It is a crying sin of our Nation I pray God charge it not upon us lest as we have already smarted for it we smart not now at last to purpose So that were but these Improvements put into Experiments their great plea would be silenced viz VVill you set us on work we will work if you 'll provide it c. and out of all question the capacities of the Nation herein are farr more than here be labouring men to act them and so as they conceive they justifie their Abomination both by necessity and authority As for Drunkenness the Daughter which so aboundeth every where that I verily believe and fear not to make it forth by reason and experience that were it the Daughter with Idleness the Mother suppressed in this Nation wee need never to fear want or penury I know divers Towns in this land where you shall have two or three poor Ale-houses wickedly and wastfully devour more Mault than all the Freeholders Labourers and Inhabitants besides And judge you Labouring Countrie people for the most part brew their own Beer also neither is there any passage or Road-way through the Townes where these private houses of resort are and yet these to vent so much Beer or Ale is wonderfull How much then is consumed in great Passages common Roads great Towns Markets or Cities wastfully and wickedly if so much be in Corners remote and not thought of so that were there a suppression hereof how would Idleness be abashed men would scarce stand idle in open wayes or passages for shame wife and children enjoy their Fathers and Husbands at home if doing little yet not consuming that they have got already and the Markets more full and plentifull of corn so miserably wasted And therefore as I highly commend these Lawes we have already and praise God for them so I humbly pray a quickning of their execution wherein our Worthies had they not so heavy pressures upon their shoulders as are ready to break their backs I am sure they have broke the spirits already of divers whose loss we have cause to lament with watery eyes they might humbly be implored for some Inlivening Quickning Lawes with such strict penalties annexed to the execution of them as the Discoverer or Projector might not onely be rewarded but commended and protected from disgrace and calumny The second generall cause of Barrenness is in the Earth itself and the principall causes of her Barrenness are very many some are obvious to the Judgement and understanding of all as tilling Land till it bear no corn And mowing Ground till it Graze no more or yeeld no grass all which are easily to be remedied if men would learn moderation But my design lyes not so much in Reproving as Improving and discovering that there are many causes which lie more obscure and are either not discerned at all or else not adjudged any cause of Barrenness or hinderance of the Earth her fertility and so not at all endeavoured to be removed and they are in some Lands extreme Coldness of nature having a moist springing water lying near or just under the surface or superficies of the Earth which doth either eat away or devour the Sap Fruit and Strength of the said Lands or else breed and increase the Rush and Flagg which groweth in the room of Grass and eateth away the same Another cause is Rockiness Stoniness and Gravelliness all which many times lie so near the surface of the Land that they devour much of the Earth and so make that little left so weak that it can scarce bring forth any fruit Another cause is lying Mountainous sometimes so near the Sea that the Vapors and Fogs that come from thence anoy the same Also lying far from the Sun and in shady parts occasioneth Barrenness Another cause of Barrenness is the unsuitable unnaturall laying down of Land to Graze a cause scarce imagined so to be or the present ill lying of Land that hath layen long and was ancient Inclosure al which are infinitely more prejudiciall to the fertility thereof than can be imagined till contrary experience hath discovered it viz For that Land that is sandy warm or gravelly that to be laid on high Ridge or Furrow is directly contrary to the naturall fruitfulness of that Land And that which is of a cold moist spewing or weeping nature for that to be laid down flat or levell is to the ruin and destruction of that also and is an extreme on the other hand The latter sort requireth high ridged Lands and clear open Furrowes and the first sort the contrary and especially all lands whatsoever to be laid down in good heart and strength Also another cause is the standing of the winter water upon the land or the rain of Heaven I say not the running over lands so that it may be laid dry at pleasure but the standing soaking water breeds the Rush and fowleness and likewise gnawes out the heart and strength of it like the worm at the stomack and devoureth the strength of it as experience will shew in mady parts of the Land where great Balkes betwixt Lands Hades Meares or Divisions betwixt Land and Land are left and one Furlong butting or Hadlanding upon other Furlogns makes such a stoppage of the free passage of the water that a great part of that land lyeth as it were drowned a great part of the year that it overcomes not that backing many times till near Midsummer when other sound Lands have yeelded a full half yeares profit and so for half a year yeelds little or no profit at all Another great prejudice is the Mole-hills and the Ant-hills although I shall not directly argue hence Barrenness naturally yet accidentally they much barrennize it therefore I shall demonstrate the evil of both for the Mole-hills that destroyes some
to truth as may be and leave the Compleatment to succeeders 1. What Fen-drayning or the recovering of Lands from under water is that deserves the name or merits the Title of perfect Drayning I say it is not onely the overly taking away the Water from off the Surface or over part of the Turf or Sword for then might all bogs or quagmires be recovered and easily would Nor the taking off the downfalls as our Fen men call them that is the waters falling from the Heavens in great Raines and showers Nor is it the taking off all Land-falls Land-floods or great waters from off those Lands No nor the doing of all these in a customary and usuall way that doth or will deserve to be called a perfect Drayning But it is as I formerly said about recovering Boggy-Lands a going to the bottom of the Corruption and taking away the Venom that feeds the Fen or Moor that wateriness and coldness which gnaws out the spirit at the root And the taking away this is perfect Drayning for although I say the other Draynings are not the best nor perfect yet I neither discommend the other nor discourage from them where they are made already or may be made he reafter but highly commend them or any of them where otherwise there would be none or the Lands lye wholly drowned yet being in all Arts Trades and Callings we ought to study cut the Mysteries thereof and all men do or ought to entdeavour to raise the richest fruits and draw forth the greaest plenty to the Common-Wealth they can out of the whole Earth so out of this small parcell we never accomplish The End untill we have brought it to it's best perfection that is not onely to recover it from drowning to bearing sedge or reedy flaggy grass which is the first fruits of Draining and from which the rude ignorant Fen-man desires no appeal nor is it to recover it to bear morish foul strong grass in Summer and Drowned in Winter nor yet to lye dry both Winter and Summer upon the Surface of the Earth and wet and Boggy at the spades or Plough-share point nay though it will through a dry season or heat of Summer bear the Plough and much of it may be converted to Tillage or Corning but still unsound in the bottom all this makes not though a good yet not perfect work but the perfection is in the reducing it to soundness and perfectness of Mould and Earth whether Sand Clay Gravell or mixed then returns it to a perfect Soard and pure Turf brings forth the small common Thistle Clover Crowflower and Hony-sukle then shall you reap the Quintessence of the Earth in breeding feeding or Corning These Lands thus perfectly Drayned will return to be the richest of all your Lands and the better Drayned the better Land Where are your richest Lands of England but your River Lands your Marsh Lands that all of them lye under the Levell of the Sea and were it not inbounded by the banks and the power of Gods word would all return to the Sea again but through their perfect Drayning are most excellent sound and warm Lands yea some of them so good that usually the Winters profit of their Grazing equallizeth the Summer as witnesseth much of the Marsh-Land near London Blackwall c. with many other parts Whence is the richness of your English Holland Land but from the pure and perfect Drayning And the out-landish Holland Lands recovered to this great height of Richness I know all Lands are not so Fecible as others are nor some cannot possibly be brought to that perfection as others may I shall provoke unto the best Improvement and where there can be a Male-Improvement offer not to the Common-Wealth a Female and so you have as plain a description what Drayning is as I can give you I am of a strong opinon that there is very much Fen-Land may be recovered to as great a worth and goodness in it self as any Meadow Marsh-Land in England which leades me to the second branch of this particular to describe the Manner and lying of the Fens to the which I am induced too for these Reasons 1. Because many know them not at all 2. Because many are discouraged from the thoughts of attempting the Improvement of them that are very able thereunto I am confident would have recovered them yet partly because of their ignorance of the lying of them conceiving them to be some great Lake Pan or Meer as are some in Lancashire Cheshire or Yorkshire that lyeth so low that hath no fall or out-let can be made to drain out the Waters of them and partly through the scandall and offence that is taken and given out by rude customary and most an end unrightfull Commoners against the Drayning of them as also conceiving them to be nothing els but some great Bog or Quagmire lying so flat as is not Draynable 3. Because my self was once before I knew them in some measure thus deceived but especially because the report of the Country people was as one man that the undertakers Drayning had no whit at all advantaged them but that their Fen Lawes and Commission of sewers and the works they made through that authority and by the directions and meanes they used had brought the Fens into as good a posture as all he undertakers works the which my self was hardly drawn to believe endeavouring hereby to suggest the impossibility of ever accomplishing a perfect Drayning so that many not knowing that the fall is considerable in it self and very great into the Sea by reason of the Ebbing of the Water will thereby give opportunity unto a most compleat Drayning of them And lastly that by this information I may quicken all Ingenuous Spirits to the helping on the work so advantagious to the Common good and yet so fecible I therefore describe the Fens of England to lie in some proportionable manner to those great Rivers and gallant Meadows adjoyning to them in many eveâ— and less descending Countries onely with these two observations 1. That these Fens are nearer the Sea the Center of the waters and so we must conceive the fall or descent to be the lesser for as our lesser Brooks run quicker than our great Streams and the bigger the stream and nearer the Sea any great River runneth the slower by far the water descendeth and flatter the Land lyeth so the Fens being a far vaster and greater compass lye more flatter and the Rivers run the slower 2. Because these Fen-Lands being far greater and many times more broader than our greatest Meadowes therefore being covered with water and lying more levell will not Drain so fast and so can not hold comparison in each particular yet a more suitable Modell to describe them by to those that know them not I cannot Frame So that the Fen-Lands so called are as I may say great Meadows covered over with water in the time of a great Land-flood
decay it almost if thou hast but a reasonable quantity then thou must get it for the use of the drugsters and Apothecaries and the sets to plant again and then in the taking up of every root there will be one runner which hath little buds upon it the which may be divided and cut into a fingers length each so planted with one bud out of the ground set upright which makes very excellent good sets one runner will make many sets but these sets cannot be got up untill the Madder be taken away And having thus preserved it untill it come to a good crop if thou intendest it and hast a quantity sufficient to set up a Madder Mill having curiously dryed it as you do your hopps to a just perfect gage of drought Thou must provide all materials to that purpose the Mill I cannot well describe and it is exceeding curious to be made aright I do not hear of any one can do it yet possibly there may be some Engineer or some Dutch man here that can do it it being a common Mill in Holland and the Low-Countries which is the only place for Madder that I hear of in the World A rude discovery I could give but I wil forbear least any one taking pattern by it should abuse himself more and me in some measure yet here is the mystery of it so to pare of the husk that it may be if possible as the wheat is ground beflaked or flayed that it may go all one way which sort they call the mull Madder and is little worth not above nine or ten shillings a hundred and then you must take out the second sort called the number O which is the middle rind and is not worth so much as the third sort called the Crop madder by one sixth part and this crop Madder is the very heart and pitch of it inclining to the yellow and this lesser in quantity but better in quality by far Sometimes the best Madder is worth eight or nine pound a hundred and the number O is worth but six pound six shillings 8 pence or eight pound two shillings fix pence and sometimes it is not worth above four pound or five pound a hundred yea sometime it may come to three pound the hundred possibly because I would not abuse the Reader I advise my Madder-Planter to send over for a workman thence who can both describe the Engine and the manner of mixing sorting of it which is the greatest mystery and well worth your labour and pains it wil be At Barn-Elms was once Madder sowen brought to good perfection and a Mill erected by one Mr. Shipman the late Kings Gardner who had a Patent for it from the late King but being as I am informed a poor man was not able to carry it on for want of stock as I conceive these times coming on broke his new Plantation but on Mr Hassey bought his Madder which proved excellent good and sold it again to the Dyars who exceeding high commend it Which is sufficient proof to me that we may raise make as good as any is in the world why not as well as Holland our Lands both Marsh Fen abundanceof Up-land and Meadow is as rich dry and deep of soyl and good for it as theirs is and we have use enough for many thousand weight of it some Dyars using above a 100 pound a week a man The profit I shall not determine because it will be long before a thorough tryall can be made of it but now as it is planted in Gardens unspeakable advantages are made thereby and should it hold that proportion when it comes to be made up and compleated to the Dyars it would prove the richest commodity that I know sowed in England I hear Sir Nicholas Crisp is erecting a Plantation of it his ingenuity is to be commended highly in many things for his publique spiritedness countenanced in a work that is so likely to tend to the publique good I know none can drive on publique ends without private aims neither know I wel why he should to his own ruin but he that drives on his private so as the publique shall be most advanced from men deserves great honor and thou that repinest set such another work on foot and then thou wilt grow more charitable But I shall say no more but humbly pray all encouragement may be given hereunto for could it be brought to that perfection as Woad is here it might be as great an addition to the nation as any thing I can discover I have done The Fourth Peece of Improvement hath respect unto the Plantations of Hops Saffron and Liquorish both in relation to the mystery thereof and profits thereby CHAP. XXXVII Onely treats of Hops Plantations and how Land is improved thereby AS for Hops it is grown to a Nationall commodity But it was not many years since the famous City of Lond. petitioned the Parliament of England against two Anusancies or offensive commodities were likely to come into great use and esteem and that was Newcastle-coal in regard of their stench c. and Hops in regard they would spoyl the tast of drink and endanger the people and for some other reasons I do not well remember but petition they did to suppress them and had the Parliament been no wiser than they we had been in a measure pined and in a greater measure starved which is just answerable to the Principles of those men that now cry down all devices or ingenious discoveries as projects so this day therby stifle choak Improvement yet we see what nationall advantages they have since yeelded and no less will many of the other This Hop plantation would require a large discourse but I shall contract my self to the briefest discovery therof I can possible therefore shall under three or four Heads 1 Shew you the land is best for them and best Sets to plant withall 2 The manner of planting them and husbandring them untill they be fit for sale 3 The profit and advantage that will accrew thereby I shall describe it thus it comes up with severall sprouts like Sparrowgrass runs up climbs on an thing it meets withall bears long stalk hairy and rugged leaves broad like the Vine the flowers hang down by cushers set as it were with scales yellowish called in high Dutch Lupulus in Low Dutch Hopssem and in English Hop It is offensive upon this score hot in the first degree stuffs the head with the smell therefore use it not too much yet the leaves open clense 1 The best land is your richest land and in time you must gain therein lest another reap the benefit of your labour It must be a deep mould that which lyeth near the Rock the Poles cannot be set deep enough to stand firm it would be a mixed earth that is compounded of sand and a little clay but much solid earth a strongish
land laid dry and warm will bare the most weightiest Hops A barren morish wet soyl is not natural to the Hops delight but if this be laid very dry and made very rich with dung and soyl it may do reasonable well It will be best to stand warm if may be preserved from North East wind rather by hils than trees as near your house as may be that Land you determine for your Hop-garden lay as levell as square as ye can possible and if it be rough and stiff it will do well to be sowed with Hemp Beans or Turnips before but in what state soever it be till it in the beginning of Winter with plough or spade this not onely the year before but every year so long as you use it the more pains and cost you bestow the more profit and the nearer you resemble the Flemming in his hopping And for your Sets those are your Roots taken from your old hils roots go to a garden ordarly kept where the Hops are of a good kind all yearly cut and where the hils are raised very high for there the roots will be greatest buy choice Sets they may cost six pence a hundred and sometimes have them for taking up leaving things orderly and their hill well dressed You must chuse the biggest roots you can find such as are three or four inches about and the Set nine or ten inches long and have three joynts in a root Take heed of Wild-hops they are onely discerned by the fruit and stalks The unkindly Hop that likes not his ground soyl or keeper comes up green and small in stalk thick and rough in leaves like nettles much bitten with a black fly but it destroyes not the Hop but hurteth it somewhat and so you have the first particular 2 The manner of planting as soon as your roots are got either set them speedily or lay them in some puddle or bury them in earth but leave them not in water above four and twenty hours Then begin to direct your hils with a line tyed with knots or threads thereto the due distance had need to be 8 foot betwixt because then you make the fewer and bigget hils the sun comes about them the poles reach not one another and so it may be plowed yearly otherwise it must be digged some say seven foot and others say six foot as our late accustomed manner is and I am confident there is most advantage by thin planting but that I leave to each experience Your hole under the knot of your line had need be a foot square and deep then if you can have the wind South or West it is best if not go on having made many holes matter not the wind be sure to take the moneth of April for the work and take two or three of your roots as a great old Gardiner affirms which by this will yeeld green Sciences or whit buds and will have small beards growing out and joyn your sets together even in the tops and set them altogether bolt upright and there hold them in their place till you have filled the hole with good mould set low but just as the tops may be level with the ground and then after they must be covered two inches thick with fine mould be carefull you set not that end downward which before grew upward which you know by the bud growing upward and let no part of the dead stalk remaine upon the uppermost joynt thereof then press down the earth hard to the roots some will set them every one at a corner of the hole under the line which I rather encline to because they have room and stand round but if you plant late have green Springs upon them then be careful of not covering the Spring but to set more plants lest some should fail and in a bigger hole and round about the same set 8 some say ten or more which is thought tedious but I will make a tryal thereof it being the latest experimented in our dayes now at this time you need make no hills at all there as aforesaid Poultery must be preserved from scratting the Goose especially Now for poling if your distance be 3 yards or 8 foot then 4 poles are repuired else three wil serve but I encline to 6 or 7 foot distance and 4 poles and as many this year as any Alder poles are very good taper and rough and sutable to the Hops desire but you must take such as the Country will afford The time of cutting your poles is in December or November and then dress them and pile them up dry if you leave some twigs it will not do amiss For length 15 foot is a good length except your ground be very rich or your hills exceeding heightned or if they grow too thick your poles need to be the longer The Hop never stocketh kindly untill it reach higher than the pole and returneth a yard or two for whilst it is climbing the branches that grow out of the principal stalk grow little or nothing Your poles be strong 9 inches about the bottom they stand faster 150 poles make a load which may be worth a little more than ordinary wood a few wil supply the standing stock in setting your poles lay all to each hill you intend to set which speeds the work When your Hops appear as you discern where your principal root stands then set to poling having a orow of Iron to make entrance for the pole but if you stay longer then you will be more subject either by ramming or making holes to bruise the root or else they will not so easily catch the pole without flying Your foot of the pole must be set a foot and half deep and within 2 or three inches of the principal root but if your land be rocky then you must help your self by making your hill higher to strengthen your poles for which you must stay the longer too lest you bury your Sciences Your poles of each hill lean them rather outward one from another and then with a rammer ram them outward and not inward If a pole should break you take away the broken pole ty the top of those hops to the top of a new pole then winding it with the sun a turn or two set it in the hole but if you can take a stake and ty it too without wresting the wiers of it may do well to peece but if broken at the neather end shove the pole in again and if your poles break in the pulling up or will not be drawn by reason of drought or hardness you may make a pair of pinsors of 4 foot long with an iron runing hook upon them with a block laid under upon the top of the hil so coleweigh up your pole the mouth whereof made hollow And for laying up your poles the usual way is to ty two two