joiix woRr.in(}E. 119 



Gloucester ami Ross." I IxHcn c the onlv xincvard now cxistlni^ in the 

 country which \iclcls a quantity of wine annually is at Cardiff Castle, th(! 

 Marquis of iUite's residence in South Wales. Chapters on grafting, 

 transplanting, pruning, hops, and many garden crops are exceedingly 

 interesting. He speaks of thi- red strawberry growing in new fallen 

 copses, and of an excellent scarlet variety from New England, grown by 

 a merchant at Clapham in his garden, to which he adds that to ha\e 

 strawberries in autumn "you may only cut away the first blossoms of 

 summer and they will afterwards blow anew, as he proved, for he gathered 

 many on Michaelmas Day." 



Chapter g is on beasts, fowls, and insects. Of sheep, he says the 

 Herefordshire about Lemster bear the fairest fleeces of any in England. 

 The incubator we hear so much talk of nowadays is certainly no novelty 

 in the production of chickens, for at page 175 Worlidge says: "In 

 Egypt they hatch their eggs in great quantities in ovens made for that 

 purpose." In several places in this countrv also vou may hatch three or 

 four dozen eggs in a lamp furnace made of a few boards, only by the 

 heat of a candle or lamp. Geese, he says, will only hatch their own eggs, 

 and pigeons are fond of salt and lime. There are chapters upon the 

 implements of agriculture, on fowling, on hshing, and a kalciufaninii 

 rusticuni, or monthly directions for the husbandman and gardener, and 

 a chapter of the prognostics 01 dearth or scarcity, plenty, sickness, heat 

 and cold, and other variations in the weather, and a dictionary of rustic 

 terms used in agriculture. 



Worlidge took quite a scientific view of the subject, and whilst he 

 held peculiar ideas in many matters, which must be charged to the times 

 in which he lived, the work was undoubtedly a very wide step in the 

 advancement of the art, and clearly shows the rapid progress of reforma- 

 tions of every kind that was taking place ; indeed, he is described by 

 the biographers as compiler of the first systematic treatise on husbandry, 

 having in his experience gathered into a focus the scattered information 

 published during the period of the Commonwealth. He also wrote 

 " Vinetum Britannicum, or the Treatise of Cyder," in 1670, with further 

 editions in 1678 and 169 1, dedicated to Elias Ashmole, F.R.S. ; " Apiarum, 

 or a Discourse on Bees," in 1676 and i6gi, the latter edition being 

 published bv Thomas Dring, at the sign of the Harrow at Chancery 

 Lane : and a work on the art of gardening styled " Systema Horti- 

 culturae" in 1667, printed for Thos. Burrel at the Golden Ball, under St. 

 Dunstan's Church in Fleet Street. He resided at Peterslleld. in Hamp- 

 shire, but beyond this little appears to bt; known of the date ot his 

 birth or death. 



