12 AN AGRICULTURAL FAGGOT. 



storehouse of proverbial wisdom and of information 

 respecting the rural life, domestic economy and agricul- 

 tural practices of our Elizabethan ancestors. He appears 

 to have been a versatile but not altogether a successful 

 man, as is suggested by the following lines published in 

 1608 : 



Tusser, they tell me, when thou wert alive, 

 Thou, teaching thrift, thyself couldst never thrive ; 

 So, like the whetstone, many men are wont 

 To sharpen others when themselves are blunt. 



He had a reputation for piety, but his standard of com- 

 mercial morality might have been higher if, as I gather, 

 he recommended that measled pigs should be killed, 

 salted and shipped to the Flemings. 1 



The foundations of modern farm practice were laid, as 

 has been said, in the eighteenth century, and Jethro Tull's 

 " Horse-hoeing Husbandry," published in 1733, may be 

 said to be the corner-stone. Born in 1674, at Basildon, 

 he farmed first at Crowmarsh, then at Shalbourn, where 

 he died in 1740. He invented the first practicable drill, 

 but his many mechanical inventions were less valuable 

 than the reasons which he gave for their employment. 

 The main principles he inculcated were clean farming, 

 economy in seeding, drilling, and thorough cultivation. 

 His principles were put in practice by large landowners, 

 such as Lord Townshend, Lord Ducie, Lord Halifax and 

 Lord Cathcart. To " Turnip " Townshend, who was 

 born in the same year as Tull, more perhaps than to any, 

 is due the credit for vigorous and enlightened application 

 of TmTs principles, on which he established the Norfolk, 

 or four-course, system of cropping. 



The turnip and the four-course system not only intro- 

 duced a new era for arable farming, but opened up the 

 way for the improvement of live-stock. There was ample 

 need for it. Some attention had been given to the pro- 

 duction of wool, but from the grazier's point of view sheep 

 1 " History of Agriculture and Prices," Vol. IV., p. 56. 



