viii Introduction. 



note is practically worthless, from the absence of the refer- 

 ence. After considerable search, I have been unable to 

 discover where Hunter's statement is to be found, so that the 

 nature of his objections can only be guessed at. 



In Walter Harte's Essays on Husbandry (ii. ^f) we read 

 — " How Fitzherbert could be a practitioner of the art of 

 agriculture for 40 years, as he himself says in 1534, is pretty 

 extraordinary. I suppose it was his country amusement in 

 the periodical recesses between the terms." We are here 

 presented with a definite objection, grounded, as is alleged, 

 upon the author's own words ; and it is most probable that 

 Harte is here stating the objection which has weighed most 

 strongly with those who (like Hunter) have objected to the 

 current opinion. The answer to the objection is, I think, 

 not a little remarkable, viz. that the alleged statement is not 

 the author's at all. By turning to p. 125, it will be seen that 

 it was Thomas Berthelet the printer who said that the author 

 " had exercysed husbandry, with greate experyence, xl. years." 

 But the author's own statement, on p. 124, is differently 

 worded ; and the difference is material. He says : " and, as 

 touchynge the poyntes of husbandry, and of other artycles 

 conteyned in this present boke, I wyll not saye that it is the 

 beste waye and wyll serue beste in all places, but I saye it 

 is the best way that euer I coude proue by experyence, the 

 whiche haue ben an housJwlder this xl. yeres and more, and 

 haue assaied many and dyuers wayes, and done my dyligence 

 to proue by experyence which shuld be the beste waye." The 

 more we weigh these words, the more we see a divergence 

 between them and the construction which might readily be 

 put upon the words of Berthelet ; a construction which, in all 

 probability, Berthelet did not specially intend. Any reader 

 who hastily glances at Berthelet's statement would probably 

 deduce from it that the author was a farmer merely, who had 



