No. 4.] MONKS IN AGRICULTURE. 25 



taneously which in the neighborhood one is compelled to 

 cultivate with care. The Abbot William brought the first 

 salad from France into Denmark. If in the eleventh cen- 

 tury England could boast of an agriculture more advanced 

 than many other countries, if it presented less forest and 

 heath and more cultivated lands and fat pasturage, it owes 

 it to the zeal of the monks who had found there in early 

 times a hospitable welcome. It was the monks who in 

 Flanders cleared the forests, drained the marshes, rendered 

 fertile the sandy lands, snatched from the sea its most an- 

 cient possessions and changed a desert into a blooming 

 garden. 



There were certain abbeys, especially in England, that 

 took the greatest care not to clear the country of all trees. 

 It is related of Alexander, the first abbot of Kirkstall, that, 

 foreseeing the necessities of the future, he forbade the cut- 

 ting down of the vast forest he had acquired by divine pro- 

 tection, and preferred to purchase elsewhere the timber he 

 required in erecting his large buildings. The monks of 

 Pipwel in Northampton did not cease to plant trees in their 

 forests and were said to watch over them as a mother over 

 an only child. For their own private necessities they made 

 use of dead, dry wood and reeds. 



As a rule, the monks took great care in the cultivation of 

 their land to conform to the laws of climate, soil and locality. 

 In the north they devoted themselves especially to the raising 

 of cattle, and in these countries the greatest privileges that 

 could be given them were woods and the right to allow the 

 swine to wander in them. In other countries they occupied 

 themselves in the cultivation of fruit trees, the improvement 

 of which was their work. It was the celebrated nursery of 

 Chartreuse of Paris that up to the epoch of the Revolution 

 furnished fruit trees to almost the whole of France, and the 

 remembrance of their labors still lives in the name of cer- 

 tain delicious fruits, such as the doyenne and bon chretien 

 pears. The finest orchards and vineyards belonged to the 

 monasteries. All the chronicles speak of the cultivation 

 of Mt. Menzing in the canton of Zug, which produced 

 abundantly wheat and fruits and particularly nuts. The 



