146 AGRICULTURAL WRITERS. 



gawderies of butterflies ; and the growth of the walnut tree for its fruit 

 to eat, its oil, and the great value of its wood for furniture. 



He reduces husbandry to three general heads — tillage, pasturage, 

 and plantation ; and recommends that land be fallowed every third or 

 fourth year. Dung requires digestion or maturation by reason of the 

 seeds which lie in the litter. Fresh dung he considered better for 

 stercoration than an old putrid mass, as the saline or sulphurous parts 

 of the dung are wasted in which its. vegetative power chiefly consist. 

 Lime kills weeds, corrects coldness of the soil, and cherishes the grain. 

 Burning of land is an excellent good practice. Wheat steeped in salt 

 brine and powdered with lime is recommended as a preventive against 

 many evils. He was an advocate for tiled roofs instead of thatched 

 ones. Broom is an enemy to pasturage, and the way to destroy fern is 

 to whip off the young heads of it with a switch as soon as it peeps out 

 of the ground, for then it is very tender, and w^ill weep or bleed 

 extensively. After a few cuttings in this manner it will die away. Malt 

 dust is recommended as a fine top-dressing to grass, and the planting of 

 tobacco in England, a production which certainly would be beneficial to 

 a world of people, and yet it is destroyed by public order as fast as ever 

 it grows up. He considered meadow and feeding grounds had fallen at 

 least fifteen per cent, since the importation of the foreign grasses, clover, 

 and sainfoin, although he admits that more corn and cattle can be raised 

 by their aid, " as they lie fattening in clover." 



A long chapter is devoted to inns and alehouses, in which he advises 

 the magistrates to exercise a vigilant care over the licensing of these 

 resorts. A chapter on the poor does not suggest any scheme for their 

 relief, but is merely observations on the means of avoiding poverty. On 

 the subject of fuel, the author recommends wood and charcoal, in order 

 to prevent the smoke from coals in^London, and adds, " what more is to 

 be lamented than the glorious fabrick of St. Paul's now in building, so 

 stately and beautiful as it is, will after an age or two look old and dis- 

 coloured before 'tis finished, and^may perhaps suffer as much damage by 

 the smoak as the former temple did by the fire. It might have been 

 more convenient that the outside of the sumptuous pile had been of a 

 plainer mould." He reckoned that "the summ total of the chimnies in 

 London was nearly three hundred and sixty thousand." (What would 

 he say of to-day, when there must be millions.) " What I have written," 

 says Nourse, "is not grounded on the reports and methods of others, 

 but upon my own observation, to\Aards which 1 have had some small 

 advantage by my long continuance in a private and country life." 



