PREPARATIONS FOR AGRICULTURAL ADVANCE 131 



half before the improvements were generally adopted. Already 

 the germs of a proper rotation of crops had been implanted, and a 

 few advanced husbandmen, familiar with the methods of the Low 

 Countries, had realised that, in roots and clovers, they commanded 

 the means, not only of keeping more stock, but of increasing the 

 yield of corn. Already some of the drawbacks of broad-cast 

 sowing had been pointed out, and the advantages of setting in 

 regular rows suggested. Already the foreign use of oil-cake for 

 cattle had been observed and recommended to Enghsh farmers. 

 But, as Mortimer ^ notices, Lincolnshire farmers, after pressing out 

 the " oyl " from their coleseed, preferred to " burn the cakes to 

 heat their Ovens." Already also the field-cultivation of potatoes 

 had been suggested, and it is a coincidence that the suggestion was 

 made only a few years after the drainage of those fens, on the clover- 

 sick soil of which, two centuries and a half later, the adoption of 

 the crop worked a revolution. Already the use of silos and of 

 ensilage, the storage of water iii tanks for dry districts, the value 

 of coverings to rick-stands, even the utihty of the incubator for 

 rearing poultry — a box heated by a candle or a lamp — had been 

 urged on Stewart agriculturists. In a tentative fashion the " Rus- 

 tiek Authors " were feeling after improved agricultural machinery. 

 Googe's reaping car, the double-furrow plough of the " ingenious 

 yeoman of Kent," Plattes' corn-setter, the corn driU depicted by 

 WorHdge, which made the furrow, sowed the seed, and deposited 

 the manure, were the ancestors of many useful inventions. Still 

 more vaguely Stewart writers were looking for the aid of science. 

 Its future benefits could not, of course, be foreseezi. But the 

 demand for an Agricultural College, the recognition of the work 

 of the Royal Society, the study of such books as WilHs' Defermenta- 

 tione or Glauber's Miraculum Mundi, in which an attempt was 

 made to analyse the elements that contribute to vegetation, show 

 that expectations had been aroused. Already a Land Registry, 

 by which land could be made to pass as freely as money, had been 

 suggested by Andrew Yarranton. Already also the aboHtion of 

 " slavish customs," and of " III Tenures as Copyhold, Knight- 

 Service etc," which " much discourage Improvements and are (as 

 I suppose) Badges of our Norman Slavery " was demanded. The 

 Hares and Rabbits legislation had been foreshadowed in the out- 



1 The whole Art of Htisbandry ; or the Way of Managing and Improving of 

 Land (1707). 



