I30 AGRICULTURAL WRUFERS. 



Ordering Cattel, Sheep, Choice of Sows, Dear, Tame Conies, Fowies, 

 Bees, Pigeons, Fish Ponds, &c." 



The work is addressed to Lord Viscount Brounker, president of the 

 Royal Society, and received commendation from John Evelyn, who writes 

 him from Sayes Court, Deptford, at that time a mansion with grounds 

 surrounding it. It seems to have been the custom in those days before 

 publishing a book to submit its contents for approval to some eminent 

 man, and include his report in the first issue. The author was evidently 

 a sea captain, as he has so much to say about the growth and manage- 

 ment of timber that was considered of use for masts and yards of ships. 

 The first book sets down "the great benefit that does arise from trading, 

 which is the strength and riches of the people, as also that the Kings of 

 F^ngland are the Sovereign Lords of the British Seas, and that the said 

 seas have by force of arms been kept and protected from the power of 

 all other Nations and Kings in memory, by undoubted records." The 

 second book treats on planting forest lands and other waste lands with 

 plants for timber trees, likewise draining such lands, cleaning and 

 improving soils, and sowing seeds of corn and grass. 



The third and fourth books contain more about tree planting. The 

 fifth book shows how 200 acres of land may be cultivated and stocked 

 with creatures of many kinds, the profit thereon amounting to ;{^450o 

 per annum. The sixth book treats on the extensive fishing and shipping 

 trade of the Hollanders, due somewhat to the agreement made with 

 King Charles L, to pay unto His Majesty /,"ioo,ooo yearly and £100,000 

 ready down. On page 9 he complains bitterly that the many forges and 

 furnaces for the making of iron in Sussex have devoured all the famous 

 woods. On page 35 he savs : " Chalk is onlv a kind of white marie, for 

 it was marie before it was chalk, and both hath its original from clay." 

 He fully believed timber trees would grow quite as large in this country 

 as in the West, as he knew of an American oak growing near Horsham 

 that, when felled, contained thirteen loads of wood and timber, and he 

 had seen fir trees in Lancashire some of them 3 yards within the ground. 

 At page go he goes into the most elaborate figures regarding the felling 

 of timber and the uses of the various parts on the market. He knew of 

 land in England that had yielded 80 bushels of wheat per acre, which, at 

 8.S-. the bushel, should double the profit of woodlands. Straw in his day 

 was worth 55. a load. He knew wealthy men in Hertfordshire " that 

 ploughed the greater part of their land with ore man and two horses, 

 who both holds the plow and drives the cattel, and in other places one 

 man and three horses would plow an acre and a half in a day." 



Smith adds in his last book that in the year 1633, being then an 

 apprentice to Mr. Matthew Cradock, of London, merchant, one of the 

 Society for the Fishing Trade of Great Britain, he was sent to sea by the 

 Right Hon. the Earl of Pembroke and Montgomery, for the discovery in 

 the island of Shetland of the manner and way of trading, the profits and 



