i64 AGRICULTURAL WRULERS. 



GILES JACOB. 



1686-1744. 



The photograph opposite is from a scarce little book written by a 

 country gentleman fond of the pursuit of agriculture and gardening, and 

 no work of the same bulk previously noticed has contained such useful 

 matter. Agriculture has ever needed the assistance of educated men 

 in its practice, and it seems extraordinary that it should have 

 derived most of its valuable advancements from many who were not 

 professional cultivators. Even when no originality comes ^ from the 

 labour of education on that point, the existing practice is adorned and 

 rendered attractive. Jacob was born at Romsey in 1686. After 

 serving an apprenticeship to the law, he became secretary to the 

 Hon. W. Blathwayt, a celebrated courtier in the reign of William and 

 Mary. His book relating to country matters forms a volume of 132 

 pages, and shows the writer to have been a man of considerable 

 learning, and although he professes to have no thoroughly practical 

 knowledge of farming, his constant association with those who worked 

 on his own estate enabled lum to seize the prominent parts which 

 related to the improvements of the day, and place them in the brighter 

 view which arose from his education. Lands, he says, are improved 

 by soiling, draining, watering, and grubbing. Clover and rye grass 

 appear to have taken his fancy as being extraordinary crops for 

 enriching lands, especially when fed off with sheep; indeed, he fed it 

 for three years and then sowed again. Nowadays such a mixture as 

 this is rarely left down more than one year. The wages of his time are 

 given in cxtenso and also the produce of crops. He reckoned an acre 

 of good wheat to produce 30 bushels, which is more than the average 

 to-day. Oats and barley he put down at from 20 to 40 bushels, and he 

 considered a load of hay to the acre as a good return from meadows. 

 The wideness of a hedge between tenant and tenant as fixed and allowed 

 by statute he puts at 3ft., while between lord and lord the bounds 

 extend to 4ft. Freeholders who object to paying tithes for other people 

 may be interested to know that by Stat. 7 & 8 Wm. III. and 3 & 4 

 Anne two disinterested justices of the peace have, or had in his day, the 

 power to determine complaints relating to tithes under the value of 40.S-. 

 On the breeding of horses Jacob advised a strong similarity in the 

 parents, and that they are well shaped, especially the mare, which the 

 foal most resembles. Young horses should not be handled or broken to 

 use until the age of four years. It is feared in these times of rapidity 

 they are turned into useful stuff long before that age. The marks of a 

 good cow are full chest, thick on the ribs, hair lying smooth and shining, 



