Improvements in Farming 55 



and wasted, and the soldiers enforced to give the wheat to their 

 horses.' Probably most of Cromwell's soldiers were farmers, and 

 this may account for their interest in the crops and in the absence 

 of fallows. It is evident that the Scottish farmers had given up 

 the wasteful system, and that in spite of this they were growing 

 the heaviest crops of corn those English farmers had ever seen. 



The chief problem in agriculture was the introduction of a 

 rotation which would at once increase the production of corn, 

 meat, and milk. Many theories as to how this could be done 

 were circulating among landlords, advanced farmers and others 

 interested in agriculture. Hartlib, a friend of Milton, busied 

 himself in collecting every piece of information he could find 

 which appeared useful. His Legacy of Husbandry published in 

 1651 contains the writings of men like Sir Richard Weston, good, 

 sound instruction from whatever sources it came. He advocates 

 the growing of sainfoin, trefoil, clover and lucerne. Farmers 

 before sowing were to c make their ground fine, and kill all sorts 

 of other grasses and plants, otherwise they being native English 

 will by no means give way to the French ones, especially in this 

 moist climate.' For lucerne they are not to spare the seed, not 

 to expect that it will continue to yield a good crop more than 

 seven years, and to see that neither sheep nor cattle should be 

 allowed to graze it in the first year. 



Dutch farming was frequently presented to the English farmers 

 as an example. Hartlib tells what the Dutch do. ' They keep their 

 cattle housed winter and summer : for the winter provision they 

 lay in not only hay, but also grains (which they buy in summer 

 and bury in the ground) and also rape seed and linseed cakes, and 

 sow turnips not only for themselves but their cows also, with the 

 which turnips being sliced and their tops and rapeseed cakes and 

 grains they make mashes for their cows and give it them warm, 

 which the cows will slop up like hogs, and by this means they 

 give very much milk.' A correspondent denied that the Dutch 



