The Civil Wars and the Landed Interest. 337 



"whilst working ; the Scotch farmers too improvident to resort 

 to bare fallowing. Sea- wrack was the only manure used on 

 the ley ground. "Wheat and rye were never cultivated, though 

 the soil, naturally prolific, threw up heavy crops of barley and 

 oats. Nothing very satisfactory could result from such dis- 

 graceful husbandry. The bread, cheese, butter and drink 

 were all indifferently bad. The principal diet of the native 

 was a broth of either cole wort or barley ; his dwelling a one- 

 storied hovel, with neither chimney nor window, and his 

 person as uncultivated as his soil. Abroad, farming had re- 

 ceived a fresh impetus, about 1478, by the writings of the 

 Italian Crescenzio, and at the beginning of the century now 

 under discussion, the French, in the persons of Bernard Palissy 

 and Charles Estienne, had begun to bestir themselves in a 

 similar fashion.^ Other continental writers of this period were 

 Herrara of Spain, Heresbach of the Low Countries, and Tarello 

 of Italy. Though men's minds were thus set tow^ards improv- 

 ing European agriculture, there was no spur of stern necessity 

 to urge them forward. This was not to occur till after the 

 long war which ended in the Peace of Aix la Chapelle, The 

 scarcity engendered by this long period of warfare so fright- 

 ened the French, that good farming became a State policy, and 

 was therefore encouraged by the king and attempted by the 

 nobility. 



* Rees, Encyclo.^i sub vac. Agriculture. 



