CHAPTER VI. 



THE LATER STEWARTS AND THE REVOLUTION. 

 1660-1700. 



Worlidge's Systema AgricuUurae (1669) : improvements suggested by agri- 

 cultural writers ; tjTanny of custom ; contempt for book-farming ; slow 

 progress in farming skiU ; general standard low ; horses, cattle, sheep, 

 and pigs in the seventeenth century ; want of leaders ; growing influence 

 of landowners ; the finance of the Restoration, and the abolition of 

 military tenures ; legislation to promote agriculture ; Gregory King on 

 the State and Condition of England and Wales in 1696 : the distribution 

 of population and wealth. 



The practical improvements, which had been suggested by " Rustick 

 Authors " in the first sixty years of the seventeenth century, were 

 collected by John WorHdge in his Systema AgricuUurae (1669). 

 Five editions of this " first systematic treatise on farming " show 

 that it was for some time regarded as a standard authority. Free 

 from the extravagant promises of his predecessors, WorHdge sum- 

 marises their most useful recommendations. Inordinate space is 

 stiU allotted to such topics as trees, orchards, " garden tyllage," 

 bees, and silkworms, which occupy 106 pages out of a total number 

 of 217. On the side of stock-breeding and stock-rearing his book 

 remains especially defective. For information on this subject he 

 merel}^ refers readers in a general way to other WTiters. Three 

 pages only are devoted to the section " Of Beasts," in which the 

 special quahties required for the different uses of horses, cattle, 

 and sheep are whoUy ignored ; only in the case of dogs does Wor- 

 Hdge appear to recognise the variety of purposes for which animals 

 are bred. 



Even the most practical work on farming which was pubHshed 

 in the seventeenth century is iU-balanced and defective. Yet it 

 is remarkable how many of the triumphs of nineteenth century 

 farming were anticipated by these early wTiters, a century and a 



