78 AGRICULrURAL WRITERS. 



Russell Smith. It contains a full account of his life and his publications, 

 and is written in the most eulogistic terms. He considered that 

 " whether for the man of letters or of science, the politician or the theo- 

 logian, the historian or the biographer, the life of a man like Samue 

 Hartlib has manv rare claims on human intelligence, sympathy, and 

 respect." 



GABRIEL PLATTES. 



1600-1655 [about). 



After a period of devastation, when our fatal domestic wars changed 

 the instruments of husbandry into martial weapons, the country found 

 itself in a sad plight for the want of cheap food for an increasing popu- 

 lation. Whenever a nation becomes populous, and the necessaries of 

 life are scarce and dear, it is then expedient to attempt the discovery of 

 new improvements in husbandry, so that the community may be fed upon 

 easy terms. Plausible theories upon such occasions amount to little 

 more than ingenious amusements, and it is a series of skilfully conducted 

 experiments that can alone establish matters of fact. In this connection 

 it was remarked by that intelligent writer Gabriel Plattes, who may be 

 considered as an original genius in husbandry, that " Reason had 

 deceived him so many times that he would trust it no more unless the 

 point in question be confirmed and made manifest by experience — without 

 which no knowledge in husbandry is perfect, for experience admitteth no 

 imposture." Such a frank and honest declaration aptly illustrates the 

 feeling that had come over the land in relation to agriculture in his day. 



In the meantime France had been making considerable efforts in 

 reviving husbandry, attending more to the actual practice than the distri- 

 bution of literature on the subject, so that whoever desired to employ 

 their systems found it desirable to travel the country, and this several of 

 the best men of the time did. The French system of " petite culture," 

 which made a farm resemble a garden, did not, however, commend itself 

 here, as the holdings were too large to manage with the spade alone, but 

 when it was found they could get as great a return from ten acres as we 

 could from fortv it led to an improvement in our methods. Another 

 secret spring that gave new motion to agriculture and preserved to us 

 that superiority which, as foreigners say, "gave rise to the greatness, 

 riches, and power of England," was the exportation of wheat, first 

 allowed about the year 1661 under several restrictions, one of which was 

 that no wheat should be permitted to go out of the country except it sold 



