52 AGRICULTURAL WRFLERS. 



and calamity of poor fools, or not daring to deal with the sword, to make his gain of 

 merchandise, and, being a creature of the land, contrary to his kind, give himself to the 

 rage of the seas and the pleasure of the windes, wandering like a bird, from shore to 

 shore, and country to country, or to follow this goodly profession of bawling at a bar 

 and for gain, to open his jawes at every bench. 



In referring to seeds these old time husbanders evidently knew the 

 value of new as against old. On page 23 he says: 



And though there be sundry sorts of seeds and every country has its kind, and. 

 sows such as best agrees with their nature : yet generally this is to be regarded that 

 you sow none that are old and dead, but the newest, for old seed doth oftentimes, 

 change their nature : as the seed of Colworts, that being sown turneth to Rapes : and 

 Rape seed likewise into Colworts. The best seed also is that which is weightiest and 

 lyeth in the bottom and hath a good colour. 



More than one species of wheat or hybrids thereof seem to 

 have been known to these early writers. Googe says on page 28 that 

 Galen states : 



Next to wheat and barley followeth zea,* being the wean betwixt wheat and barley. 

 He mentions two kinds, and of the latter says : " With one grain in every husk, grow- 

 ing in ranks and in the top resembling barley with his sharp awnes." In Italy it is 

 used as provender for horses. Both bread and drink might be made of it very well, 

 but it is troublesome to grind. It flowereth in June and is ripe in July. 



They appear to have knov^n two kinds of rape, one grown for its 

 seed for bird feeding and the production of oil, probably what we call in 

 the present day German rape or colza. The other grew in great 

 roundness of root, cr else ^•ery flat, and reached an enormous size. 

 Pliny writeth : 



That he had seen rootes of them that had weighed forty pounds, and others had 

 seen them weigh one hundred pounds, and it was considered wonderful that from so 

 little seed should come so great a root. 



This description must surely represent what we call to-day a Swede 

 turnip, as it is accredited to be an evolution from the rape. 



Here is an extract from page 36 having reference to a plant which 

 surely must be what we know as lucerne. 



Amongst all sorts of fodder, that is counted for the chief and the best which the 

 people of old time call Treeloiie, the Frenchmen call Grandtreple, and the Spaniards 

 call Alfalfa. [In Spain lucerne is still called alfalfa.] Pliny writeth " that it was 

 brought by the Romans out of Media differing almost nothing from Tryfolly or three 

 leaved grass." 



On page 42 is explained the difference between a pasture and a 

 meadow, and it seems extraordinary that in those early times so much 



* This word is known to us as the botanical name of maize, but the species of corn here 

 mentioned have no affinity with that plant, which was first cultivated in England in 1562. 

 For this fact I am indebted to Dr. B. Daydon Jackson, of the Linnean Society. 



