The Domestic Acquirements of the Landed I nteixst. 359 



food ; in 1645 ^ it was being given either boiled or raw to the 

 pigs; in 168-1:^ it had been adopted as a field crop for winter 

 sheep feed, but in Houghton's days it was still limited to the 

 East Anglian farming area.^ So also in the case of the potato. 

 Though Raleigh introduced its cultivation into Ireland with 

 such good e£fect that the soldiers of the conflicting armies 

 escaped the consequences of a bread famine by its support, and 

 though, no doubt, they advertised its excellent qualities on 

 their return home after the wars, it was a long time before it 

 followed them across St. Greorge's Channel. Even in Houghton's 

 days people preferred to pay 6iZ. and 8c?. per lb. for the more 

 palatable species imported from Spain to the inferior kinds of 

 home production, and there is no evidence whatever of even 

 its partial cultivation as a field crop in the allusions made by 

 this author to its uses and culture.' The general adoption of 

 clover culture is probably the one exception that proves the 

 rule. It was introduced in 1655, and ten years later it was 

 being cultivated on most soils in much the same fashion as it 

 is now. But if not an epoch of progress, it was one full with 

 future promise for the landed interest. Thus the introduction 

 of green crops was the germ of the coming four-course system ; 

 the allusion by Markham to the silos of the Azores, that of our 

 modern ensilage system ; ^ the discovery by Dud Dudley of sea 

 coal as a smelting agent, that of the pig iron industry ; the de- 

 scription by Worledge** of a new form of corn setting, that of 

 the drill, and the literary sketch by Blith of an instrument 

 which ploughed, sowed and harrowed, all at the same time, 

 that possibly of some future invention. The truth is, that 



' Blith in his Improver Improved, alludes to this practice in Sir 

 Reveston's time. 



^ Worledge's correspondence with Houghton in Collection of Husban- 

 dry and Trade. 



2 Houghton, Collection of Husbandry and Trade, vol. i., p. 213. 



■♦ Id., Ibid, vol. ii., p. 468. 



* Markham wrote three principal works. 1. The English Husband- 

 man, 1613. 2. Farewell to Husbandry, 1649. 3. The Enrichment of the 

 Weald of Kent and Sussex. Hartlib also alludes to the silo system, but 

 deprecates its adoption in so ivet a climate as England ! 



^ See Worledge, Systema Agric. 



