76 AGKICULTURE. 



state of the farming interest in his days. He says that the 

 smaller farmers live worse than " those in Bridewell : " 



" And for the best of them, they live as uncomfortably, 

 moyliug and drudging ; what they get they spend ; plow, 

 sow, and reap, and all to bring the year about ; and can 

 they make even at year's end, if servants' wages can be 

 payd, rent discharged, and teems maintained, and family 

 alive, all is well. I dare say fewer estates are raised, tho 

 in itself an honest calling, than by any calling or employ- 

 ment whatsoever ; Whistle it in and whistle it out, as the 

 proverb is." 



In proposing his remedies, he discourses of leases, of 

 tenant right, of employing more capital, of vermine (game), 

 and of " slavish custome never affecting ingenuity," as 

 glibly as Richard Cobden, and as confidently as John 

 Bright. He also proposes means for silencing the great 

 plea of the labourers " Will you set us on worke ? We 

 will work if you'll provide it." He speaks very dispara- 

 gingly of all the agricultural writers of his day except 

 " Master Gabriel Plats," but bears the following testimony 

 to the estimation in which Lord Bacon's works were then 

 held : But Sir Francis Bacon's Natural Historie let it 

 have high esteeme, 'tis full of rarities and admiration for 

 true philosophic, and shall be acknowledged as a sun in the 

 theore to these poor and low moonelight discoveries." With 

 all this, however, we cannot now occupy ourselves. It is 

 when our author comes to draining and irrigation, on which 

 he is more diffuse than on any other single topic, that he 

 becomes a man after our own heart. Page after page he 

 insists on the absurdity of putting water of irrigation on 

 the top of your land till you have effectually drawn the 

 existing water out of the bottom : 



" And for thy drayning trench it must be made so deepe 

 it go to the bottome of the cold spewing moyst water that 

 feeds the flagg and rush " " a yard or foure feet deep, if 

 ever thou wilt drayne to purpose." And again, " to* the 

 bottome, where the spewing spring lyeth, thou must go, 



