35S History of the English Landed Interest. 



could be coiive3-ecl in a post bag was likely to find its way into 

 tlie bands of the rural gentry. More honour then to John 

 Houghton the apothecary and Gregory King the Lancaster 

 herald. The former was the first to edit a scientific weekly 

 paper on agricultural and trade statistics.^ For eleven years 

 he j}ersevered with this literary venture until a growing busi- 

 ness obhged him to abandon the attempt. But if his editorial 

 work had not been the cause of his increased trade it had 

 at any rate elevated his social status by gaining for him the 

 coveted fellowship of the Eoyal Society, He and King, whose 

 mathematical bent led him into all kinds of queer calculations, 

 have proved of more value to the experts of this generation 

 than to those of their own. To such a work as The Prices 

 and Agriculture of Professor Rogers for instance, the writings 

 of these Stuart statisticians have no doubt proved a god-send ; 

 but it is more than doubtful if they were read by their con- 

 temporaries outside a select circle in the metropolis. 



Of other works useful to our present purpose, there is a 

 revised edition of Camden's Counties^ corrected up to 1700 ; 

 Yarranton's EnglaiuVs Improvements hy Sea and Land, 1677-8 ; 

 Sir Jonas Moore's History of the Great Level of the Fennes, 1685; 

 the same author's England's Interest, or the Gentleman and 

 Fanner's Friend, and Leonard Meager's Mystery of Husbandry. 

 In the purely agricultural works we cannot expect anything 

 fresh on the subjects discussed by Hartlib, Blith, and Wor- 

 ledge. It has already been pointed out that all agricultural 

 progress was extremely slow, and to further illustrate this 

 feature of the times let us examine the case of the turnip.^ In 

 1562,'^ it had been boiled with butter and used solely as human 



' Houghton wrote two works, viz. A Collection of Letters for the Im- 

 provement of Husbandry and Trarfe, London, 1681-1703, and An Account 

 of the Acres and Houses, with the proportional Tax etc., of each County 

 in England, London, 1G93. 



Gregory King wrote ^a^io'a^ and Political Observations, hom which 

 work Davcnant copied largely when writing his book. 



- The turnip was introduced some time during Hartlib's life. He 

 alludes to it in the third edition of his Legacy, but not in the earlier 

 editions. 



^ Tusser, Five Hundred Points of Good Husbandry. 



