Its Agriculture. 343 



and Hertfordshire farmers were buying up the London street 

 sweepings, and the market gardeners of Chelsea, Fulham, 

 Battersea and Putney were reaping large profits by using the 

 London night soil as a fertiliser.^ Little allusion is found 

 either to the northern Midlands or the north of England. 

 These parts, together with Wales, were still thickly wooded. 

 They were either behindhand in their husbandry or possibly 

 unvisited by any of the agricultural experts who have jotted 

 down their experience on paper. The least fertile' districts 

 mentioned by these writers were Devon, Cornwall, Derby, 

 Lancashire, Yorkshire and Cheshire. 



The science of arboriculture did not escape the notice of the 

 agricultural school of this century. AVorledge,^ whose book, it 

 may be mentioned in passing, is the first of its kind to possess 

 an index, and which is valuable if only for its dictionary of 

 rustic terms, pays special attention to this subject. Blith too 

 touched on the same topic in his Improver Improved. The 

 former author describes the uses and propagation of the oak, 

 elm, beech, ash, walnut, chestnut, service, birch, maple, horn- 

 beam, quickbeam, hazel, poplar, aspen, abele, alder, withy, 

 sally, willow, sycamore, lime, horse chestnut, fir, plane, larch, 

 alaternus, phillyrea, bay, laurel, and privet trees. Such orna- 

 mental shrubs as the myrtle, box, juniper, tamarisk, arbor 

 vitse, laburnum, Spanish broom, laurestinus, woodbine, etc., 

 are described, as well as the whitethorn, holly, blackthorn, 

 pyracantha, elder, furze, and other plants suitable for fences. 

 The nursing, transplanting, pruning, shrowding, cutting and 

 felling of trees receives careful handling ; and the orchard 

 culture of apples, pears, cherries, walnuts, filberts, quinces, 

 plums, medlars, almonds, currants, and raspberries is accu- 

 rately described. The localities where the vine once flourished 

 are cited, such as Bromwel Abbey in Norfolk, Ely in Cam- 

 bridgeshire, and parts of Gloucestershire and Kent, all places 

 where the name " Vineyard" was still retained in the author's 



' Norden, Surveyor''s Dialogue. 



^ Worledge, Syatema Agrlc. The frontispiece is an illustration of a 

 farm of the period, with the common lands, enclosures, and arable 

 ftTounds. 



