114 AGRICULTURAL WRITERS. 



ground, for which it is best, but good also for drier upland grounds, specially dry, 

 stony, or sandy land, which is unfit for sainfoin. It was first sown (he must mean 

 artificially, as this grass is a native of the country, and forms quite three-fourths of 

 the herbage in all old grass-land) in the Chiltern parts of Oxfordshire, and since 

 brought nearer Oxford by one Eustace, an ingenious husbandman of Islip, who, 

 though at first laughed at, has since been followed even by those very persons that 

 scorned his experiments. 



From the preceding it will be gathered with what eagerness the 

 earlier cultivators sought out the forage "grasses," as they termed them, 

 yet they seemed to have done little towards separating the hner-leaved 

 natural grasses, the reason for which, according to a later writer, was that 

 " Taese produced many small hair-like roots which filled the soil, and 

 therefore could not but be very impoverishing and hurtful thereto." 

 Without considering that the then very common practice of cropping a 

 field as long as it would recompense their labours, and afterwards, letting 

 it alone for some years to recover under a crop of unsown grass, was of 

 itself a perfect contradiction to their false theory. As an approximation, 

 however, to a more improved system, some recommended sowing, along 

 with the clovers for permanent pasture, the seeds shaken out of natural 

 meadow hay, and mostly swept up on the hayloft floor without consider- 

 ing that, as the different species composing such hay did not ripen their 

 seeds simultaneously, only a partial reproduction of these species could 

 be expected ; besides which, the mixture would also consist of a very 

 large percentage of the seeds of obnoxious weeds. 



We also find about this time that the turnip was being sown 

 everywhere in fields and gardens for the sake of their roots, and 

 that— 



Sheep fatten very well on turnips, which prove an excellent nourishment for them 

 in hard winters when fodder is scarce ; for they will not only eat the greens, but feed 

 on the roots in the ground, and scoop them hollow, even to the very skin. 



The next book to notice is entitled, " The Great Improvement ol 

 Lands by Clover, or the Wonderful Advantage by right management ol 

 Clover," by Andrew Yarranton, of Ashley, in the County of Worcester 

 London, printed by J. C. for Francis Rea, bookseller in Worcester, 1663 

 It is a work of some forty-six pages octavo, and dedicated to the indus 

 trious husbandman, freeholder, or farmer. This little book contains the 

 most truly practical matter that had appeared in the agricultural world 

 to the time when it was written, as it is divested of all extraneous and 

 adventitious notices with which the writers of those times swelled their 

 works. 



In writing of obstructions to good husbandry he says : 



It is in consequence of a too stiff adhering to old customs, especially wiih the Irish 

 and Welsh, as King Henry the Eighth said, " they will not leave the old mumpsimus 

 for a new sumpsimus." 



