34^ History of the English Landed Intei'est. 



its pages in search of agricultural information, and we can 

 but regret that the author's other work, styled Adani's art 

 revived, scarce even in Blith's time,^ was not more common 

 than this old woman's recipe book. 



In days of such crass ignorance, as that displayed by the 

 London citizens in petitioning Parliament against the intro- 

 duction of coal because of its stench, and that of hops as calcu- 

 lated to destroy the taste of drink and endanger the people's 

 health, it was palpable to agricultural experts that a technical 

 education must precede any reforms in the national husbandry. 

 In the 4th edition of John Worledge's Systema Agricultur(e, 

 edited by J, W. Gent in 1687, the author draws attention in 

 his preface to the good work done for agriculture by the Royal 

 Society, especially emphasising Mr. Evelyn's efforts to advance 

 this science, and recommending the institution of subordinate 

 branches in the provinces. But before this, Hartlib, far in 

 advance of his age, was already advocating a seventeenth-cen- 

 tur}'' Cirencester College, and there is no knowing how much 

 might have been done for England's welfare had such an insti- 

 tution been founded on the lines set forth in his treatise on the 

 subject. Without the agricultural writers of the seventeenth 

 century English husbandry would probably have made but 

 little progress even under the fostering care of Cromwell. 

 Journalism was in its very earliest babyhood. In 1641 the first 

 newspaper describing the diurnal proceedings of both Houses 

 might have been purchased at its publisher's, William Cook's, 

 shop in Furnival's Inn Gate, and before the death of the king 

 a hundred other papers were in existence,^ but they were all 

 at first weekly editions, though during the civil wars the 

 printers managed to attain to a tri-weekly issue. These were 

 times when the national news took days in travelling the 

 length and breadth of the kingdom. Then, too, the scanty 

 means of locomotion confined the farmer to his native county 

 from cradle to coffin, so that there was no other means of 

 communicating popular information save through the book or 



' Vide BUth, Improver Improved, Introduction. 



^ Craig and Macfarlanc, Hist of En(j., bk. vii., ch. v. 



