1 1 8 A GRIC UL TURA L WRITER S. 



He writes an exceedingly interesting chapter upon the history and 

 value of the leading clovers and other leguminous crops, and he recom- 

 mends three bushels per acre of ray grass mixed with nonsuch (trefoil), 

 because of itself it's a thin, spiry grass, and will not be of any bulk the 

 first year unless thickened by the other, which, failing by degrees, this 

 grass thickens upon it, and lasts for ever. He also speaks of French 

 tares, or vetches, very quick of growth, and excellent food for both cattle 

 and horses. He recommends spurrey as making excellent butter, and 

 for making hens lay more eggs. He repeats the old storv of the 24ft 

 grass at Orcheston, in Wilts, but is careful to add that it is in length, and 

 not in height. He refers to the value of saxifrage in pastures in the 

 districts where cheese is made, and praises the heavy cropping powers of 

 the everlasting pea. He quotes from Pliny that Triptolemus was the 

 inventor of the plough, and that oaten malt makes good beer. On 

 page 41 he says : 



There is a new sort of oats or groats growing like unto whole oatmeal, without any 

 hulls ; they grow near ihe city of Durham, where they have been yearly sown above 

 these thirty years. After they are sown they come up like common oats, but with a 

 smaller blade ; when they are ripe upon the ground they are like ripe oats, and not 

 easily distinguishable from them, the greatest difTerence being that, in the thrashing, 

 these come out of the husk clean, like unto Dantzick rve, and need not be carried to 

 the mill, as other oats, to be made into oatmeal or groats. The taste of these naked 

 oats is more sweet and fleshy than others, and they are most natural boyled, as rice in 

 milk. 



Buckwheat is a grain written of as good on barren sandy loam and 

 excellent food for swine and poultry. It was much sown in Surrey. It 

 makes cows yield an abundance of milk when the grass is burnt up in 

 summer. The pulse crops are also mentioned as of greater value than 

 farmers generally considered them in that day. In the chapter on the 

 setting of corn he describes Mr. Gabriel Platte's discovery of infinite 

 treasure in the form of an engine for the purpose, and considers it full 

 of errors, and gives full particulars of his own machine for the purpose, 

 with an illustration. It is stated to sow the seed fast or slow, and bv 

 an added contrivance, no harrowing was afterwards necessary. This 

 surely must have been the original of the corn drill as we know it 

 to-day. 



He knew of the advantage and improvement by changing the seed 

 from land which has been frequently tilled, and called hook land, into 

 land newly broken, and he describes the burning of land as Denshiring, 

 corrupted, he thinks, from Devonshiring, because it seems there to be 

 most adopted. Lengthy chapters are given on forest trees, ornamental 

 trees and fruits for walls. He also urges the extended culture of the 

 vine, divers places still retaining the name of vineyards, as "at Bramwell 

 Abbey, in Norfolk, and at Ely, in Cambridgeshire, many places in Kent, 

 including one at Great Chart, in the Wilde of Kent, and between 



