WORLIDGE, JOHN. 



with another instrument to follow the former, 

 which is the better way, and may both dis- 

 perse the soil, and cover both soil and seed." 



Wool ridge was evidently an observer who 

 was able and willing to think for himself. He 

 advocated change of seed "from dry, hungry, 

 barren land, to rich and fat land; also from 

 land inclining to the south, to land inclining 

 towards the north, and the contrary;" all of 

 \vhicfi, he well adds (and the reader must re- 

 member that Woolridge was writing when 

 chemistry existed only in name), "are mani- 

 fest signs that there is some particular thing 

 wherein each seed delights, which if we did 

 but understand we might properly apply it, and 

 gain riches and honours to ourselves; but be- 

 cause we are ignorant thereof, and are content 

 so to remain, we must make use of such soils, 

 dungs, composts, and other preparations and 

 ways of advancement of the growth of vege- 

 tables as are already discovered and made 

 use of." (p. 57.) 



He extols the use of steeps for seed-corn, 

 mentions with approbation for this purpose 

 nitre, common salt, as well as urine, and gives 

 a recipe for making a kind of liquid manure 

 with sheep-dung ( bushel), saltpetre ( lb.), 

 and common salt (1 lb.), boiled together for 

 ten minutes in water (20 quarts), and this he 

 commends very highly as a steep ; and I am 

 inclined to believe that something of this kind 

 of rich liquor, more especially if the seed was 

 afterwards dried by being sprinkled with some 

 of the very fine manure powders at present 

 proposed, such as the urate of the London 

 Manure Company, the composition of M. Poitte- 

 vin, the guano, gypsum powder, &c., might be 

 used more profitably by the cultivator than at 

 first sight he may be inclined to believe. He 

 was in favour of paring and burning on some 

 soils, and had the good sense to discern the 

 advantages capable of being derived from the 

 permanent improvement of the soil by the use 

 of earthy manures. He devotes, therefore, a 

 chapter to the soils and manures taken from the 

 earth (p. 65) ; notices the uses, for this pur- 

 pose, of chalk, lime, marl, clay, fuller's earth. 



The value of sand as a fertilizer did not 

 escape our author's attention. He notices the 

 value to some soils of that of the calcareous 

 shores of Cornwall, and of the Suffolk craig 

 formation, and of that which he advises the 

 farmer to lay under his farm-yards and sheep- 

 pens. 



The excrements of fowls were strongly re- 

 commended by Woolridge as a fertilizer. He 

 describes those of pigeons and hens as "incom- 

 parable, one load is worth ten loads of other 

 dung;" commends the use of "all marrow- 

 bones, fish-bones, horn, or horn-shavings ;" 

 but- he fell into the error with regard to those 

 which it required a century and a quarter to 

 remove, viz., he fancied that all the enriching 

 qualities of the bones were to be attributed to 

 the g-ease they contained, instead of to their 

 phosphate of lime. He advocated the mixture 

 of peat, saw-dust, and tanners' refuse bark 

 with dung-heaps, a plan which is even now 

 not nearly so extensively adopted as its merits 

 deserve. Indeed, as honest John Woolridge 

 concludes his section (p. 85), "The well-pre- 

 1158 



WORLIDGE, JOHN. 



paring ofdung-mixt is a piece of husbandry not 

 to be slighted, on which point of good or ill 

 husbandry depends the rise and fall of the 

 rents or values of many farms in this king- 

 dom." 



Every account of live-stock given by the 

 earlier agricultural writers betrays the total 

 want of attention then paid by the farmers to 

 the breeding of stock, or if they do mention the 

 points to be commended in an ox or a sheep, 

 they are precisely those which a modern 

 breeder endeavours to avoid. For instance, 

 the chronicler Hollingshed commends the Eng- 

 lish cows for their largeness of bone, and 

 even Woolridge, writing centuries after him, 

 although very elaborate on most points of hus- 

 bandry, treats of the farmer's live-stock in a 

 manner that clearly indicates that in those 

 days, to use a Norfolk phrase, "a cow was a 

 cow, and a sheep a sheep." Thus all the in- 

 struction he gives the breeder with regard to 

 the selection of a cow is, that " the best sort is 

 the large Dutch cow, that brings two calves at 

 one birth, and gives ordinarily two gallons of 

 milk at one meal." His account of sheep I 

 will also give, without abridgment, for its facts 

 will sound still more novel to a modern farmer: 

 "There are divers sorts, some bearing much 

 finer wool than others : as the Herefordshire 

 sheep about Lemster bear the fairest fleeces of 

 any in England. Also they are of several 

 kinds as to their proportion : some are very 

 small, others larger. But the Dutch sheep are 

 the largest of all, being much bigger than any 

 1 have seen in England, and yearly bear two 

 or three lambs at a time. It is also reported 

 that they sometimes bear lambs twice in the 

 year." This seemed to convince Woolridge, 

 and very naturally, too, of their value, for he 

 adds, "It may doubtless be of very good 

 advantage to obtain of those kinds and also of 

 Spanish sheep that bear such fine fleeces." 



The scientific modern breeder, when he 

 smiles at this negligence and folly of a by-gone 

 race of farmers, must remember, however, the 

 difficulties under which they laboured, not only 

 from lack of knowledge, but also of the means 

 to improve at a reasonable rate their ill- 

 shaped, large-boned, and slow-feeding race of 

 oxen. He should recollect that they had not 

 had the advantage of a Bakewell, a Culley, or a 

 Collings, to labour during a lengthened period 

 for their improvement, the days of the Smith- 

 field Club, and of the Highland Society, were 

 yet far distant. They had not even a suspicion 

 of what improved breeding would effect ; and 

 if they were ignorant, as they evidently were, 

 that their breeds were inferior, we can hardly 

 wonder that they were content to labour on, 

 since the very first step to improvement, a be- 

 lief in greater excellence being possible, was 

 wanting. 



The opinions, however, of Woolridge with 

 regard to plantations of timber-trees were evi- 

 dently more enlightened; for although he lived 

 a century before the days of our modern ex- 

 tensive planters of such men as the Lords 

 Athol, Devonshire, and Fife, and of Sir Henry 

 Steuart yet he earnestly advised the planting 

 of the poorer soils of our island; he asked the 

 landowners of his time, after describing to 



