68 AGRICULTURAL WRITERS. 



buried in Trinity Chapel, Guildford. His legacy to his sons is dated 

 1645, and contains "precepts from a dying father instructing his 

 children what he hath seen and known." 



SAMUEL HARTLIB. 



1 600- 1 662 [about). 



Samuel Hartlib. who issued in book form the valuable manuscripts 

 left by Sir Richard Weston, was in many ways a remarkable man, as he 

 seems to have taken the fullest advantages of a period when English 

 husbandry rose to a high state of perfection, and when landowners had 

 discovered that the cultivation of their own estates were the very best 

 posts of employment. He was born in Poland about 1600, and came to 

 this country in 1628, starting in business nominally as a merchant, but 

 in reality a man of various hobbies and conducting a great news agency, 

 yet he must have had some knowledge of farming matters, as he was the 

 supposed author of works on the subject, besides several theological 

 tracts, and was the esteemed associate of the talented men of his time, 

 including Milton, who dedicated to him his " Tractate on Education." 

 He also assisted in establishing the embryo of the Royal Society. 

 Hartlib would also seem to have been associated with many good people, 

 for he speaks of his mother's sisters marrying the Lord Mayor's son and 

 Sir Richard Smith, one of the King's Privy Council. Others of his 

 relations married to Sir Edward Savage and Sir Anthony Irby, at 

 Boston. His first work is said to have been published in England in 

 1637, ^"^^ i" ^645 he is stated to have first issued "A Discourse of 

 Flanders Husbandry." In 165 1 appeared his " Legacie," or an 

 enlargement on the discourse. (See page 69.) He also Avrote an 

 " Essay on the Advancement of Husbandry and Learning, with Pro- 

 positions for Erecting a College of Husbandry" (see page 75), and 

 "The Reformed Husbandman." There (see page 77) also was issued 

 between 1651 and 1655 " A Discovery for Division and Setting out of 

 Waste Land in England and Ireland " and " The Complete Husbandman." 



John Evelyn, the learned writer, mentions a visit to him in his diary, 

 where he says, " This gentleman was master of innumerable curiosities 

 and very communicative." It has been noticed that the discourse on 

 Flemish husbandry was written by Sir Richard Weston, and details the 

 practice of those place^ through which he had travelled, and the language 

 employed shows a learned author, and the germs are evident of an 

 improved agriculture. 



The third edition of the " Legacie " forms an enlargement of the 



