LIFE IN THE TIME OF THE STUARTS 97 



was Gervoise Markham. Some of these books were 

 widely read, but (the farmers were slow to move. 

 Still there was some improvement. Dry land was 

 irrigated, and the drainage of wet land was sometimes 

 undertaken. The drainage of the Fens, then a great 

 area of over 1,000 square miles of marsh and lake, 

 with islands like Ely standing out, was seriously 

 attempted. The work had the support of the Duke of 

 Bedford, who with thirteen friends initiated in 1630 

 a scheme for the drainage of Cambridgeshire : he 

 employed a Dutchman, Vermuyden, to direct the 

 work. Other schemes were started for the adjoining 

 counties. Huge canals, or 'drains' as they are called 

 still remaining, were cut across the county. The 

 schemes were only partially successful and, at the time 

 of the Civil War, the fen men cut the banks of the drains 

 and flooded much of the county. A century and a half 

 later the work was recommenced and carried to a 

 successful conclusion. In other directions there was 

 substantial progress. The area under apples, pears, 

 plums, cherries and other fruit was extended and more 

 hops were grown. One writer describes a poultry farm 

 in which a primitive form of incubator was used. 

 Manuring was developed and, as a result of this and 

 better cultivation, the yield of corn crops greatly 

 increased. Turnips and clover were sown here and 

 there on enclosed fields. Their use made it possible to 

 keep land under cultivation year after year, instead 

 of leaving it fallow every second or third year, and 

 from this followed in a few generations a revolution in 

 agricultural methods. Dairy farming was extending. 

 Stock was also improving in quality. Progress would 

 doubtless have been general had it not been for 

 the feeling of insecurity that came over England with 



8 



