MAIDS AND MEADOWS. 131 



sixteen foote broad. All the rest of the coarse for two miles and a-half in 

 length, according to my former proportion. When my worke began in 

 the eye of the country to carry a shew of profit, it pleased many out of 

 their courtesie to give it commendations, and applaud the invention.&quot; 



The author then makes a considerable digression, to ac 

 count for a delay in his proceedings, which was occasioned by 

 processes issued against him from the courts of Star Chamber, 

 Chancery, and Wardes, to compel him to deliver his niece and 

 ward into their custody. 



&quot;These courts,&quot; he observes, &quot; bred more white haires in my head in 

 one year than all my wet-shod water-works did in sixteen. So leaving my 

 wanton ward in London, in the custody of a precisian or puritan taylor, 

 who would not endnre to heare one of his journeymen sweare by the 

 cross of his shears ; so full was he of sanctity in deceipt. But the first 

 news I heard was, that he had married my &quot;Welch niece to his Englie- 

 nephew ; and at my return, I was driven to take his word, that he was 

 neither privy to the contract, nor the marriage.&quot; 



Mr. Vaughan next gives the following directions for carry 

 ing this plan into effect : 



&quot;Having prepared your drowning coiirse, be very careful that all 

 the ground subject to the same, whether meadow, pasture, or arable, 

 be as plain as any garden-plotte, and without furrows. Then follows 

 your attendance in flood-times : see that you suffer not your flood water 

 by negligence to pass away into the brooke, river, and sea, but by your 

 sluice command it to your grounds, and continue it playing thereon 

 so long as it appears muddy. In the beginning of March clear your 

 ground of cold water, and keep it as dry as a child under the hands of a 

 dainty nurse ; observing generally that sandy ground will endure ten 

 times more water than the clay. A day or two before you mow, if suffi 

 cient showers have not qualified the drought of your ground, let down 

 your sluice into your trench-royal, that thereby you may command so 

 much water to serve your turn as you desire. Suffer it to descend where 

 you mean first to mow, and you shall find this manner of drowning in the 

 morning before you mow so profitable and good, that commonly you 

 gain ten or twelve days advantage in growing. For drowning before 

 mowing, a day, or even two or three, so supplies the ground, that it doth 

 most sweetly release the root of every particular grasse, although the sun 

 be never so extream hot. This practice will often make good a second 

 mowing, and in walking over grounds, I will tread as on velvet, or a 

 Turkey carpet.&quot; 



