THE SEVENTEENTH CENTUEY 31 



a,nd dismiss manure or ' compass ' with the briefest possible 

 mention. 



At the end of the seventeenth century the prospects of 

 agriculture seemed brightening. As Hartlib, the friend of 

 Milton and pensioner of Cromwell, puts it, ' ingenuities, 

 curiosities, and good husbandry began to flourish.' ' The 

 soil,' says Harrison, ' had growne to be more fruitful, and 

 the countryman more painful, more careful, and more skil- 

 ful for recompense of gain.' Wheat averaged ' on the well- 

 tilled and dressed acre ' twenty bushels. Improved means 

 of communication facilitated progress. Increased attention 

 was paid to manuring. In Sussex, farmers purchased 

 lime, fetched it from a distance, and burned it in kilns 

 erected for the purpose. In Middlesex and Hertfordshire 

 the sweepings of the London streets were bought up for the 

 fields. In Cornwall, farmers rode many miles to get sand, 

 and brought it home on horseback. In South Wales sea- 

 weed was extensively used. New materials for agricul- 

 tural wealth accumulated, especially through the revival of 

 gardening. Since the wars of the Roses this art had nearly 

 expired. Herbs, fruits, and roots, which had been plenti- 

 ful in the fifteenth century, had died out, or were thrown 

 to the pigs. Even in 1650, Hartlib says that gardening 

 was hardly known in the north and west of England. 

 Hops were introduced into England in the reign of Henry 

 VIII., though the old rhyme is hardly correct which says, — 



Hops, reformation, bays, and beer 

 Came into England all in one year. 



They were extensively cultivated in Suffolk in the time of 

 Tusser. Onions, cabbages, carrots, parsnips, ' colleflowers,' 

 were chiefly imported from Flanders ; though Piers Plow- 

 man could command the two former vegetables, they were 



