158 AGRICULTURAL WRITERS. 



JOHN MORTIMER. 



1656-1736 {about). 



The contents of the book illustrated on the preceding page are generally 

 considered to show a great advance in the progress of agriculture from 

 the earlier authors on the subject, and the photograph of the title- 

 page details exactly of what it chiefly consists. John Mortimer was a 

 merchant on Tower Hill, London, and an F.R.S. He appears to have 

 been fond of agricultural pursuits, and in 1693 became possessed of an 

 estate in Essex called Toppings Hall. Like a good many more experi- 

 mental agriculturists, he spent his whole fortune carrying out his 

 up-to-date projects, many of which he states, " are imparted for the 

 benefit of posterity." He had three wives, one of whom was a 

 descendant of Oliver Cromwell, while he himself came from the ancient 

 Somerset family of Mortimer, and whose estate in that county was 

 mostly swallowed up by the sea. 



The work is addressed to the Royal Society, and he thanks Dr. Sloan 

 and Dr. Sprat, Bishop of Rochester, for their assistance. Chapter I. 

 deals with the inclosing of land, "which lays a foundation for industry 

 and good husbandry, because of the security it gives a man in the quiet 

 possessing the benefit of his labour and care." He then explains how 

 best to divide the fields with quicks, ditches, and banks, or with stones, 

 as in some southern countries. He preferred the Mhitethorn as a fence 

 plant to the blackthorn, and he considered the holly best for very clayey 

 soils, and the alder for fences against streams and rivers, because it 

 preserved the banks from being undermined by the water. Furze he 

 found good for edges where nothing else would grow. He considered the 

 thorn hedges of Hertfordshire were the best to be seen in England because 

 of (he system of splashing forward in that county, and he describes how 

 it differs from other methods. Chapter II. is or. pasture and meadow 

 land, describing their value on certain soils and in certain situations. He 

 illustrates the Persian wheel for use in raising water to overflow the 

 land. He also pictures another wheel " much used in Lincolnshire to 

 drain the fens." He details the operation of haymaking in quite a 

 modern manner. 



As soon as your grass is mown, if there is plenty of it that it lie thick in the swath, 

 cause your haymakers to follow the mowers and to cast it abroad ; this they call 

 tedding of it. At night make it into cocks, and next day, as soon as the dew is off 

 the ground, spread it again, and if you find it dry make it up into cocks. Next day 

 draw it in long rows, which they call win-rows ; make it again into cocks if wet comes 

 on, but if fine collect it up and carry it to the stack. Put on all the hands you can, 

 that you may observe the old saying of making hay while the sun sliines. 



He seems to have known all we know to-day, with the exception of 

 the mowing machine, and he recommends meadows to be utilised every 



