282 History of the English Landed I nt eldest. 



So far natural philosophy, -anaided by chemistry, was on. 

 safe ground. It was when it had to rely on the defective 

 information of the analyst for further aid that it began ta 

 blunder. The chief defect in the literature of these early 

 philosophers is the pernicious and conventional practice of 

 using terras unintelligible to the ordinary farmer. Evelyn 

 interlarded his treatise with scraps of Latin and phrases bor- 

 rowed from the alchemists and iatrochemists, as though he in- 

 tended to make agriculture the same esoteric science as medi- 

 cine or astronomy. For his work to have proved attractive to 

 practical men, he would have done better if he had " called 

 a spade a spade," and used the simplest instead of the most 

 obscure language in expressing his meaning. 



In 1721 Richard Bradlej^, another Fellow of the Royal 

 Society, reproduced in English a scientific treatise ^ on Hus- 

 bandry and Gardening, the work of a Doctor of Philosophy at 

 Ratisbonne, So well received was it in Germany that the 

 Dutch and French considered it worthy of translation into 

 their respective languages. It consisted chiefly of " rules for 

 multiplying trees from all their Parts as Roots, Stem, Branches, 

 Twigs, and even from the very Leaves, which their author 

 prepares in such a manner with Vegetable Wax or Mummy," 

 as he calls it, that " every Bit of a Tree " ordered in his wa}^ will 

 take root and grow almost at any time of the year. Bradley 

 having tried some of his specifics with success, felt himself 

 justified in translating the work into English for the use of his 

 countrymen. His experiments, if only on account of the 

 apparent success attending them, are worthy of some con- 

 sideration. On the 12th of July the weather, Bradley says, 

 being scorching, the ground dry, and therefore unfavourable 

 for his purpose, he cut several branches of that year's shoot 

 from poach, pear, plum, arbutus, yew, and other trees, reduced 

 them to a length of six inches, dij)pcd the cuttings in the 

 mummy mixture, planted them four inches deep in a prepared 

 bed of light soil, and rammed the earth close about them. 



^ A rhiloaopliical Tveati^iC. of UitsJ>au(1r]i and Gardening, etc., by G-, 

 H. Agricola, M.D., and Doctor of Pliilosopliy at llatisbonne. Translated 

 by Ricb. Bradlej', IMl.S., London. 1721. 



