48 MASSACHUSETTS AGRICULTURE. 



most foolish degree, and incredibly nasty in personal dress 

 and habits, even as late as the reign of Henry VIII. The 

 nobility themselves, and the higher gentry, owners of castles 

 and halls, flocks of sheep and droves of cattle, and herds of 

 swine, lived in a style at which a modern workman of skill in 

 any craft would revolt. 



To the monks of Catholic England fairly belongs the high 

 praise of being the promoters of improvements in husbandry in 

 these benighted times. They were well, acquainted with the 

 best modes of culture practised in Normandy, and their educa- 

 tion and intelligence enabled them to make a judicious practical 

 application of their knowledge. Agriculture slowly improving, 

 and improved methods increasing the yield per acre, — some- 

 body thought it worth while to make a permanent record of so 

 encouraging a fact, and we have in the sixteenth century the first, 

 sample of a book on farming, — the pioneer of that great host 

 of books that have since been written, neglected, and not sel- 

 dom ridiculed by the many who think that a traditional, verbal 

 method, handed down by word of mouth, is all right ; but if 

 anybody writes it down, and it then be printed and be read, it 

 is all wrong, nonsense and twaddle, and the mere theory of 

 book-farmers. 



By the close of the sixteenth century, great advance was made 

 in the comforts of domestic life. Old Harrison, who wrote 

 about the same date, says that the good yeoman farmer of his 

 time, although rents had greatly advanced, " would think his 

 gaines were verie small if he had not six or seven yeares' rent 

 lieing by him — beside a faire garnish of pewter in his cupboard 

 — with so much more in odd vessels about the house ; three or 

 four feather beds, so manie coverlids, and carpets of tapistrie, 

 a silver salt, a bowle for wine (if not a whole neastle), and a 

 dozen of spoons to finish up the sute." 



Making a long leap, Cromwell was himself a friend and 

 encourager of agriculture, and from his time down, the cul- 

 tivation of the soil began to interest men of education and of 

 wealth. It left the unlettered hinds to which it had been 

 greatly confined ; and alluring intelligent labor to its aid, made 

 an onward progress that, surprising its old adherents, and 

 encouraging its new friends, united them all in the promotion 

 of its further success. 



