X Introduction. 



the experimental farmer, the man who could afford to lose if 

 things went wrong, one to whom farming was an amusement 

 and a recreation, and who delighted in trying various modes 

 that he might benefit those who, unlike himself, could not 

 afford to try any way but that which had long been known. 



3. We must note the language in which he describes him- 

 self He does not say that he had " exercised husbandry " 

 for forty years, but that he had " been a householder " during 

 that period. The two things are widely different. His know- 

 ledge of agriculture was, so to speak, accidental ; his real 

 employment had been to manage a household, or, as we 

 should rather now say, to " keep house." This, again, natu- 

 rally assigns to him the status of a country gentleman, who 

 chose to superintend everything for himself, and to gain a 

 practical acquaintance with everything upon his estate, viz. 

 his lands, his cattle, his horses, his bees, his trees, his felled 

 timber, and the rest ; not forgetting his duties as a man of 

 rank in setting a good example, discouraging waste, giving 

 attention to prayer and almsgiving, and to his necessary 

 studies. " He that can rede and vnderstande latyne, let hym 

 take his booke in his hande, and looke stedfastely vppon the 

 same thynge that he readeth and seeth, that is no trouble to 

 hym" etc. (p. 115). Are we to suppose that it could be said 

 generally, of farmers in the time of Henry VHL, that Latin 

 was " no trouble to them " ? If so, things must have greatly 

 changed. 



I have spoken of the above matter at some length, because 

 I much suspect that the words used by Berthelet are the very 

 words which have biassed, entirely in the wrong direction, 

 the minds of such critics as have found a difficulty where 

 little exists. It ought to be particularly borne in mind that 

 Berthelet's expression, though likely to mislead now, was not 

 calculated to do so at the time, when the authorship of the 



