110 FROM JAMES I. TO THE RESTORATION 



the Flaunders manner, (viz.) under a covert, in which earth is 

 strawed about 6 inches thick " ; ashes, soot, pigeons' dung, 

 malt-dust, blood, shavings of horn, woollen rags as used in 

 Hertfordshire, Oxfordshire, and Kent. It need scarcely be pointed 

 out that for none of these fertilisers was the agriculturist indebted 

 to chemistry, and that no attempt was as yet made to restore to 

 the soil the special properties of which it is impoverished by par- 

 ticular crops. To meadows and pasture no attention was paid ; 

 mole-heaps and ant-hills were not spread and levelled ; in laying 

 down land to graze, little care was taken to sow the best and sweetest 

 grasses. Clover, sainfoin, and lucerne were generally ignored. 

 The practice of " soiling" that is, of cutting clover green as fodder 

 for cattle, is, however, commended. Large tracts of land were 

 allowed to lie waste, so " that there are more waste, lands in England 

 than in all Europe besides, considering the quantity of land." 

 Among the waste lands he includes " dry heathy commons." " I 

 know," he adds, " that poore people will cry out against me because 

 I call these waste lands : but it's no matter." 



The destruction of woods for fuel is condemned. For this con- 

 sumption the glass furnaces of the South, the salt " wiches " of 

 Cheshire, and, above all, the iron-works of Surrey, Sussex, and 

 other counties, were responsible. The writer probably alludes to 

 " Dud " Dudley's experiments, when he expresses the hope that 

 the difficulties of using " sea-coal " for the smelting of iron might 

 be overcome so as to save our timber. Experiments were not 

 sufficiently tried, and a " Colledge of Experiments," already recom- 

 mended by Gabriel Plattes, is once more suggested. Men do not 

 know where to go if they want advice, or to obtain reliable seeds 

 and plants. Some means was needed of bringing home to other 

 husbandmen a knowledge of the improvements made by their more 

 skilful brethren. Another deficiency in English husbandry was its 

 insular repugnance to foreign methods and new-fangled crops. 

 Men objected that the new seeds " will not grow here with us, for 

 our forefathers never used them. To these I reply and ask them, 

 how they know ? have they tryed ? Idlenesse never wants an 

 excuse ; and why might not our forefathers upon the same ground 

 have held their hands in their pockets, and have said, that Wheat, 

 and Barley, would not have grown amongst us ? " The same com- 

 plaint, it may be added, is made by Walter Blith in The English 

 Improver Improved : " The fourth and last abuse is a calumniating 



