58 AGRICULTURAL WRLTERS. 



rain. His list of natural manures is almost as copious as ours of the 

 present d^y. 



He gives a practical discourse upon marl, extending over several 

 pages, and concludes " that is a natural and yet a divine soyl, being an 

 enemy to all weeds that spring up of themselves, and gives a generative 

 vertue to all seeds that are sown upon the ground by the labour of man." 

 He recommends muckheaps to be protected by cheap covering, " such as 

 they use in the low country to make their barns, a pattern whereof 

 stands to be seen near unto St. Albones, not far from Park Mill." In 

 respect to the ear of barley illustrated in this book, he says, on page 

 139:— 



I have thought good to prehx in the front of this treatise the portraiture of an ear 

 of summer barley, being drawn truly and sharply, according to the length and 

 breadth thereof, which, together with sundry others of the same proportion (as by 

 divers eyewitnesses of good credit I can prove and justifie). did grow this summer at 

 Bishop's Hall, where I dwell, to the great admiration of the beholders; the stalk of 

 which, together with the ear, was measured to be an ell and 3in. in length from the 

 ground to the summity thereof. And this I did in barren ground by the help and 

 means of waste soap ashes. I have also found the like success thereof in pasture 

 grounds by the means aforesaid. 



Sir Hugh also wrote a small booklet, entitled " Sundrie New and 

 Artificial Remedies against Famine," evidentlv before he became a 

 knight, for he adds, " written by H. P. Esq., uppon the occasion of this 

 present Dearth," printed by P. S., 1596. He was also the writer of a 

 work on the " Setting of Corne," divided into eight chapters. An illus- 

 tration of the title page is given opposite. He relates that the art of 

 dibbling corn originated with a silly wench who was employed in setting 

 carrots and had some seeds of wheat in the bag that were accidentally 

 put into the holes, when the stems showed a very superior luxuriance of 

 growth. He describes the mode and way of performing the work, and 

 states the produce to be I5qrs. of wheat per acre, against the old way of 

 sowing to be only 4qrs. He also says that a western gentleman steeped, 

 two years together, his barley in the sea water, and then sowed the same 

 in 1595 and 1596, and had very plentiful crops. 



In his " Floreas Paradisie,'^ " beautified and adorned with sundry 

 sorts of delicate fruites and flowers" to be " solde in Paules Churchyard 

 at the signe of the Holy Ghost, 1608," he refers to " the rare and most 

 peerless plant of all the rest, I mean the grape," and the wholesomeness 

 of the wine made from his garden at " Bednall-green neare London," 

 and adds : 



If any exception shold be taken against the race and delicacie of them I am content 

 to submit them to the censure of the best mouthes, that profess any true skill in the 

 judgement of high country wines ; although for their better credit herein I could bring 

 in the French Embassador who gave this sentence upon them : that he never drank 

 any better new wine in France. And Sir Francis V'ere, that martiall mirrour of our 



