106 FROM JAMES I. TO THE RESTORATION 



and Dyet both Hunting and Running Horses (1599), by Grymes's 

 Honest and Plaine Dealing Farrier (1636), and by John Crawshey's 

 Countryman's Instructor (1036). Then, as now, horsedealing was a 

 trial of the sharpest wits, blunted by the fewest scruples. Crawshey, 

 who describes himself as a " plaine Yorkshire man," warns his 

 readers against being deceived when buying horses in the market, 

 " for many men will protest and sweare that they are sound when 

 they know the contrary, onely for their private gaine." Where so 

 much is strange in farming matters, it is refreshing to find familiar 

 features. The proper treatment of woodlands was discussed by 

 Standish (1611). Rowland Vaughan (1610), struck by the sight of 

 a streamlet issuing from a mole-heap in a bank, discussed new 

 methods of irrigation, or " the summer and winter drowning " of 

 meadows and pasture. Even the smaller profits of farming received 

 attention. Numerous books were published on orchards, and on 

 gardens, in which were now accumulating such future stores of 

 agricultural riches as turnips, carrots, and potatoes. Mascall in 

 1581 had written on the " husbandly e Ordring of Poultry " ; Sir 

 Hugh Plat had instructed housewives in the art of fattening fowls 

 for the table ; and John Partridge published a treatise on the same 

 subjects, in which he gives recipes for keeping their natural foes at 

 bay. The following may be recommended to Hunt Secretaries, who 

 are impoverished by demands on their poultry funds. " Rub your 

 poultry," says Partridge, " with the juice of Rue or Herbe grasse 

 and the wesels shall do them no hurt ; if they eate the lungs or 

 lights of a Foxe, the Foxes shall not eate them." Nor were bees 

 neglected. Thomas Hill (1568), and Edmund Southerne (1593) had 

 written on the " right ordering " of bees. But Charles Butler's 

 Feminine Monarchic (1609), and John Levett's Orderinge of Bees 

 (1634) became the standard authorities on the subject. Both books 

 were known to Robert Child, author of the Large Letter on the 

 deficiencies of English husbandry, published by Hartlib in 165 1. 1 

 He says that Butler " hath written so exactly, and upon his owne 

 experience " that little remained to be added. Henry Best (164 1), 2 

 however, preferred Levett to any other writer on bee-keeping. 

 " Hee is the best," he thinks, " that ever writte of this subjeckt." 

 During the same period men like Gabriel Plattes or Sir Richard 



1 Hartlib's Legacie, p. 64. Robert Child in the 1651 edition speaks of Levett 

 as " Leveret." 



1 Farming Book, p. 68. 



