CHAP, vii SYLVA 185 



Thus honest Tusser above an hundred years since, 

 and the whole age has justified it ; since 'tis evident, 

 that by inclosure and this diligent culture, the very 

 worst land of England would yield tenfold more profit, 

 than that which is here celebrated for the best and 

 richest spot of it. 



19. Such as are ready to tell ye their lands are so 

 wet, that their woods do not thrive in them, let them 

 be converted to pasture ; or bestow the same industry 

 on them which good husbands do in meadows by 

 draining ; which instead of those narrow rills (and 

 gutters rather) might be reduc'd to a proportionable 

 canale cut even and strait ; the earth taken out, 

 spread upon the weeping and uliginous places : Nor 

 would the charge be so much, as that of the yearly 

 and perpetual renewing, and cleansing of those nu- 

 merous and irregular slices ; beside the profit of storing 

 the canal with fish. 



It is a slothfulness to do otherwise, since it might 

 be effected in few years, by continually, and by 

 degrees making the middle cut large, where it can- 

 not be so conveniently done at once, and the pains 

 would certainly be as fully recompenc'd in the growth 

 of their timber, as in that of their grass: Where poor 

 hungry woods grow, rich corn, and good cattle would 

 be more plentifully bred; and it were beneficial to 

 convert some wood-land (where the proper vertue is 

 exhausted) to pasture and tillage; provided, that fresh 

 land were improved also to wood in recompence, and 

 to balance the other. 



20. Where we find such uliginous and starv'd 

 places (which sometimes obey no art or industry to 

 drain, and of which our pale and fading corn is a sure 

 indication) we are as it were courted to obey nature, 



xx 



