154 



NEW ENGLAND FARMER, 



NOV. 10, 184)1,1 ^ 



From tlie American Agriculturist. 



ANTIQUE SYSTEM OE HUSIJANDRY. 



"Foore Bookes of flusbandrie, collected by M. 

 Conradus Heresbachiiis, 'Counsellor to the liyf;li 

 and mightie Prince, the Duke of Cleii ; conteynlnjj 

 the whole arte and trade of Husbandrie, witti the 

 antiquity and commendation thereof. Newly Eng- 

 lished and increased, by Barnabe Googe, Esquire. 

 Genesis iii. 19: 'In the sweate of thy face shall 

 thou eate thy bread, tyll thou be turned agayne in- 

 to the ground, fur out of it wast thou taken: yea, 

 dust thou art, and to dust shalt thou return.' At 

 London : printed for lohn Wight, 1578." 



For the perusal of this relic of the olden black 

 letter times, we are indebted to our friend, the Rev. 

 J. O. Clioules, whoso zeal for the cause of agricul- 

 ture, and taste for whatever is rare and recherche, 

 has prompted him to collect and preserve one of the 

 best selections of valuable literary antiques on this 

 subject, possessed in this city. As indiciiled in 

 our last, our object in referring to this work, is to 

 afford our readers some choice specimens of the ex- 

 tremes of truth and error; sense and nonsense; 

 just observation, accurate judgment, and nice dis- 

 crimination, combined with a wholesale admission 

 of the merest figments of the brain; the confident 

 belief of the most preposterous conceptions, and 

 the indiscriminate acceptance of the most absurd 

 legendary superstitions, which characterize the old 

 writers. 



The style of our author is clear, concise and 

 coiriprehensive, and of classical purity ; and in 

 brushing away for a moment some of the cobwebs 

 that time hath allowed to cluster before the furrow- 

 ed, yet benignant and placid visage of this choice 

 old spirit, and shaking off some of the nnoicnl dust 

 that sanctifies, rather than defaces his venerable 

 brow, wo trust we shall afford both entertainment 

 and instruction to our readers. They will not fail 

 to perceive the advantage they possess over their 

 ancient fellows of this time-honored craft. When 

 they look for instruction to the writings of tlie pre- 

 sent day, they are not put off with a medley, where 

 the good and bad are so mixed up, that the corn 

 can liardly be winnowed from the chaff; fuf they 

 know whatever will not bear the test of fair experi- 

 ment, has been discarded from the principles of 

 those who presume to act as guides. Without fur- 

 ther comment, we will proceed to make such ex- 

 tracts as our brief limits afford. 



After a eulogium on the usefulness, dignity and 

 happiness of rural life, fortified by such authority 

 as Nestor, Socrates, Xenoplion, LucuUus, Scipio, 

 Cicero and others, his first proposition is that " the 

 maisters foole is the best doung for the feclde;" 

 or as the modern maxim is, the muster's eye (over- 

 looking his men.) does tho most work — a rule that 

 has been orthodox since the first day Adam was 

 driven from the garden of Eden, and will be while 

 the human race endure. His next, sustained by 

 Calo, is that •' a good husband must rather be a 

 seller than a buyer ;" which is equally applicable 

 to all times and places. A third proposition is, 

 that " an euil (evil) garden betokeneth an il hus- 

 wife ;" which is as true now as 300 years ago, for 

 a notable housewife will see te it if her husband 

 does not, that the kitchen garden, herabrium, and 

 flower stands, are well su|)plied from this store- 

 house of goodly things. 



He quotes for the edification of the Jliterary far- 

 mer, "from the Etmite ^Sainct Antoine, who says, 



the whole world serued (served) him for bookes, as ; had always good income. So do I think that rivet 



a well furnished library, in which he always read 

 the wonderful workmanship of God." 



The indications of good soil are clearly pointed 

 out by the location and appearance, and the natu- 

 ral growth of vegetation. Luxuriant "Bulrushes, 

 Thistles, Three-lenued Grass, Danewort, Brambles, 

 Blacktliorne, and such like as neuer grow but in 

 good ground," shews where the good but neglected 

 land lies, in all ages and climes. But annexed 

 we have a spice of gullibility that Munchausen 

 would envy in a reader. " Under the North Pole, 

 it is reported the grounde so fertil, that they sowe 

 in the morning and reape at noone." The custom 

 of " planting in Barbaric, under the Date the Olive, 

 under the Olive the Figge, under the Figge the 

 Pomegranate, and under it the Vine ; under tlie 

 Vino they sowe Wheate, and under Wheate, Pulse 



all prospering under the other's shadow, and 



yeeldyng their fruite the same yeere ;" we know 

 not whether taken in a limited sense, it be true or 

 false. It is likely, however, that when they find an 

 oasis in that arid clime, fed by some spring or rip- 

 pling stream, they cluster the whole variety of 

 tiieir crops, and the piercing rays of the torrid sun 

 afford suRicient heat to mature them all. 



He specifies "Three sorts of Doung: the first 

 of Poultrie, the next Human, the third of Cattell. 

 Mali's urine, being three moneths kept and poured 

 upon the rootes of Apple trees and vines, bringeth 

 greate fruitfulnesse to the trees, and yeeldethe a 

 pleasante fruite. Old doung is best for Corno and 

 new for Meddow. What time soever it be applied 

 to the ground, you must look that i/ie winde be wes- 

 terly and the Moone in the tvanc.^' 



Ijime and marl do not appear to have been used 

 in our author's time in England, except in parts of 

 Sussex and Kent; but he refers to its application 

 elsewhere with great particularity. "The Ger- 

 mans, besides sundry other sorts of enriching of 

 their grounds, do instead of dung, cast upon it a 

 kind of pith and fatness of the earth, (Pliny counts 

 it to be first devised in England and France,) called 

 Marga, as it were the fat of the earth : but I rather 

 think it to be the invention of the Germans, with 

 whom yet both the name and the use is retained: 

 it is gotten in deep pits, but not alike in all soils. 

 The part of France that lies upon the Miiase doth 

 show a sandy kind of iMarl, differing from the fat 

 marl of Germany, but of the same quality; which 

 carried upon the sea in vessels, is sold as a groat 

 merchandize. In some places the scouring of 

 ponds and ditches is used, to the great enriching of 

 tho ground, in the mounLainy and barren grounds. 

 In some countries they make their land very fruit- 

 ful with laying on of chalk, (one form of carbonate 

 of lime,) as Pliny testifieth of the Burgundians and 

 the Gasgoincs, and in Germany in our days, this 

 manner of mending of ground is common. But 

 long use of it, in the end brings the ground to be 

 stark nought, wherefrom the common people have 

 a speech, that ground enriched with chalk makes 

 a rich father and a beggarly son. A little lower, 

 not far from the Maase, in the country of Lyege, 

 Ihcy mend their land with a kind of slnte stone, 

 which cast upon the ground doth moulder away, 

 and makes the ground fatter. In Lombardy, they 



land by overflowings, and fast ground with mud 

 mingled with sand an gravel, will bo made mucli 

 better." 



In tillage, he says, ^' It \s not needl'ul lo stir ;^ 

 gravelly and light ground as often as the slitli; 

 ground ; yet we find that land the oftener it is 

 stirred the better it bears." 



He speaks of tho stupid mode adopted by some 

 of the Germans of recent importation in our own 

 country, " who yoke their cattell by the homes, 

 whereat the oxen are so greened (grieved) that they 

 scarcely race the upper part of the earth." This 

 method is practiced to no inconsiderable extent by 

 the descendants of the French on this continent at 

 the present day. The free use of the rake or har. 

 row and the roller, are strongly urged. 



The -waxing, waning, and falling of the moon, 

 and the course of the wind, has much to do with the 

 directions in sowing and planting, which are given 

 with great caution. The use of saltpetre with 

 certain kinds of seeds when sown, is shown lo be a 

 practice of the ancient Greeks. The origin of 

 Trefoil is given from Media, and its antiquity es 

 tablished from Columella, who noting well its great 

 luxuriance, asserts that "an acre will fynde three ^ 

 horses for a yeare." f 



"Of heinpe, there are two kinds, the male that is. 

 without floure and beareth a seed of many colors, 

 and the female that, to recompense her barrenness, '\ 

 hath a white floure. It loveth a rich ground, well 

 dounged and watered, and deep plowed : il is nattgh- 

 ttj sowing it in raimj xoealher. The thicker you 

 sow it the tenderer it will be, and therefore some 

 sow it thrice, though some appoint six seeds for a 

 foole. When the seed is ripe it is pulled and made 

 up into bundles, laid in the sun for three or fom 

 days, afterwards laid in water with weights upor 

 it for eight or ten days, till the rhind wax loose 

 then dried in the sun, then broken in the brake' 

 then combed." 



The Crops cultivated are similar to our moderr , 

 ones, with the addition of several strange names 

 " wheat, rye, barley, millet, zea. Far. adoreum, oals 

 buck or beech-wheat, panicle, kyse, sesammi, pulse 

 beans, pease, lyntels, chyche, ciccrculu, tares, lu 

 pins, fenngreche, medica (a trefoil,) cytisuj, sperie,' 

 fcc, &.C. 



Oats, though esteemed nought by Virgil, anc 

 called weeds by Pliny, were even at our author's 

 time much used in France for provender and in 

 Germany for food. In England too, they were usee 

 occasionally for both food and drink, and Theo 

 phrastus says, " it is not daintyful in the choyce ol 

 of its grounde, but groweth like a good fellow in 

 every place where no seed else will gro 



In hot weather, our author recommends plowing 

 all night, thereby turning in all the dew and avoid' 

 ing the heat of the sun. We object to this foi 

 man or beast, but would substitute from daylight 

 till 10 A. M., and from 3 or 4 P. M., till twilight 

 again. '% 



The orchard was ordered with great particularity! 

 and care. The fanciful notion of sympathy, or "al[, 

 naturall freendshippe and loua (love) betwixt cer« 

 tayne trees," and their antipathies are particularly 



ike so well the use of ashes, as they esteem it far ] noted, as well as all the modes of prnpagiting, bud-'* 

 above any dung, thinking dung not meet to be | ding, grafting, and cultivating. The custom ol i 

 used for the unwholesomeness thereof. Coluuiel- ! manuring vineyards with the trimmings of the viDf? 

 1.1 writeth, that his uncle was wont to mend sandy is shown to be at least as old as our author, am, 

 and gravelly grounds with chalk, and chalky and j may have descended from the remotest antiquity. 

 hard°grounds with gravel and sand, whereby he The lighter kind of land is preferred for the vine.^ 



