122 AGRICULTURAL WRITERS. 



JOHN HOUGHTON. 



1 640- 1 705. 



A COLLECTION of letters on husbandry that deservedly enjoyed a very 

 considerable reputation were those published in 1681 by John 

 Houghton, Fellow of the Royal Society, as they embrace a great 

 number of subjects duly discussed by some of the most prominent men 

 of the time, and make a volume of igo pages, and were printed by 

 John Lawrence, at the Angel, in Cornhill, near the Royal Exchange. 

 The author's preface is addressed from St. Bartholomew Lane, behind 

 the Royal Exchange, and he gives as his reasons for issuing them 

 periodically " that they may do the greatest good in the least time." 

 The tracts were evidently distributed loose, and bound into book form 

 by the purchaser. In No. i is given a catalogue of the books in the 

 library of the Royal Society relatmg to agriculture, amounting to thirty- 

 five volumes. The list comprises mostly Continental works, and not a 

 single one of the old writers that have been mentioned in my previous 

 notices in these pages are represented, and while the compiler says 

 he may have overlooked some, he thinks none that are material. In a 

 communication upon inclosures : " It was supposeth that England and 

 Wa'es contains twenty-hve to twenty-nine millions of acres of land, of 

 these 'tis thought that twelve millions lie waste." (Quite recently the 

 Government returns give the total area of land and water in England 

 and Wales as 37,327,700 acres, and out of the area under crops and 

 grass as 27,490,800 acres, so that the waste is just under 10,000,000 

 acres.) At the end of tract No. 2 is the following advertisement : " The 

 author hereof sells by the pound chocolate of several sons so good that 

 he thinks none sells better. And designs to carry on these collections 

 in one, two, or three sheets at a time about once a month." In a letter 

 by the celebrated Dr. Plot on the unskilfulness of the husbandman, 

 reference is made to a wheat plentifully sown in the vale between Thame 

 and \A'atlington, in the county of Oxford, called mixt Lammas, it being 

 a white-eared red-berried wheat. " It yields well, but was altogether 

 unknown about Banbury and Burford. He also refers to a red-stalked 

 wheat much grown around Oxford, and a long cone wheat that does not 

 lodge or get eaten by birds." These fine wheats, he adds, were unknown 

 even in neighbouring counties. The history of malting as practised at 

 Derby is an article ol much interest. In a chapter on books, Dr. Plot's 

 fair volume of Oxfordshire was considered the best example of the 

 natural history of our country that had appeared in any language ; 

 Evelyn's " Sylva and Pomona " the most pleasant entertainment to all the 

 ingenious nobility and gentry; Hartlib's "Legacy" a never-to-be- 

 forgotten work; Dr. Grew's "Anatomy of Vegetables" and his 



