5^ AGRICULTURAL WRITERS. 



His first work was published in 1594. and described as follows: 

 " The Jewel House of Art and Nature. Conteining divers rare and 

 profitable inventions, together with sundry new experiments in the 

 Art of Husbandry. Faithfully and familiarly set downe according to 

 the authors owne experience, by Hugh Platte, of Lincolnes Inne 

 gentleman, London, printed by Peter Short dwelling on Bradstreat 

 Hill, at the Signe of the Star, and are to be solde in Paules Churchyard, 

 ninety-six pages." The 1653 edition, of which I have a copy, and 

 illustrate the title page opposite, is addressed to the Munificent Lover 

 of all Learning, the Right Honourable Boulstrood Whitlock, one of 

 the Lord Commissioners of the Great Seal of England, &c., and 

 although its contents are varied, there is a good deal in it that pertains 

 to our subject; another edition is dedicated to Richard Devorax, Earl 

 of Essex. The author stumbled upon the use of steam, and constructed 

 a bellows, which he illustrates, and contrived a use for it to sprinkle 

 rose water and other scents about, by standing it over a hre, " and by 

 this means a small quantity of sweet Avater will be a long time in 

 breathing out." 



On page eighty-eight is illustrated a waggon to be drawn by men 

 instead of horses. He savs ; 



The joints and other parts of this wago are so knit together with hoolcs and pins 

 as that it may easily be disjoined and taken insunder, whereby many of them may- 

 be couched in a narrow room, and will lie close together in a ship. It is to be drawn 

 by six men, whereof two of them must labour at the fore-carriage thereof, and at 

 either wheel other two, which must work by winding of the handles (which are of 

 purpose fastened both to the nave of the wheel and axletree), either forward or 

 backward as occasion serves. 



In a chapter on salt he states on page 102 : 



It is salt that makes all seeds to flourish and grow, and. although the number of 

 those men is very small who can give any true reason why dung should do anv good 

 m arable grounds, but are led thereto more by custom than anv philosophical reason, 

 nethertheless it is apparent that no dung which is laid upon barren grounds could 

 in any way enrich the same if it were not for the salt which the straw and hay left 

 behind them by their putrifaction. And therefore all these simple sorts which leave 

 their muckheaps abroad, and subject to the weather, show themselves to be but mean 

 husbandmen, for the rain which falls upon these dunghills flowing downwards into 

 the valleys, doth also carry with it the salt of the dung, which dissolveth itself with 

 the moisture. The labouring hind when he carries his dung to the fields, he leaves 

 it m certain heaps, and a while after, he cometli to spread it all over the ground, and 

 afterwards when the field is sown with corn it is more green and rank in those places 

 where the same heaps were first laid. From this it may be gathered that it is not 

 the dung itself which causes fruitfulness, but the salt which the plant has sucked 

 out of the ground. 



His treatise on manures displays a remarkable acquaintance with 

 the fertilising properties of different substances, and a knowledge of 

 the importance of covering dunghills from the action of the sun and 



