THE SEVENTEENTH CENTUEY 37 



to the island of Axliolme in the eighteenth centiiiy, and 

 by its means the peat}^ soils at the mouth of the Humber 

 were converted into ' polders.' The great ' Canal du 

 Midi' was completed in 1681, but for nearly a hundred 

 years its example was lost on England. 



Before the Revolution the country, as has been seen, 

 possessed the means of recovering its strength and inde- 

 finitely increasing its productiveness. Enclosures facili- 

 tated the progress of improvements. New methods of 

 cultivation were studied, new crops introduced from abroad. 

 Turnips offered winter keep for cattle ; with cultivated 

 grasses, they supplied the means of enriching sands now 

 profitable only as rabbit warrens : the same discoveries 

 prevented the waste of land by exhaustive cropping and 

 subsequent idleness under fallow. Drainage had been 

 more practically discussed than it was destined to be again 

 till the time of Smith of Deanston. The burdens of feudal 

 tenures had been removed. Though the Crown had re- 

 asserted its forest rights, the wild boar and the wolf dis- 

 appeared in the reign of Charles II. But farmers were 

 slow to profit by their improved position or to adopt new 

 methods. No one, as Hartlib says, dared attempt innova- 

 tions, lest he should be called ' a projector.' Little ad- 

 vantage was taken of the discoveries of experimental 

 farmers ; no general improvement was effected on the 

 agriculture of the Georgics; no grazier formed a truer 

 standard of the shape of cattle than Virgil or Columella. 



