GREAT AGRICULTURAL WRITERS 145 



yet to be seen the rootes and old remaines of vines.' Plot, in 

 his Natitral History of Staffordshire} says ' the vine has been 

 improved by Sir Henry Lyttelton at Over (Upper) Arley, 

 which is situate low and warm, so that he has made wine there 

 undistinguishable from the best French by the most judicious 

 palates, but this I suppose was done only in some over hot 

 summer, and Dr. Bathurst made very good claret at Oxon in 

 1685, a very mean year for the purpose.' In 1720 the famous 

 vineyard at Bath of 6 acres, planted with the ' white muscadene 

 and the ' black Chester grape/ produced 66 hogsheads of 

 wine worth ;^io a hogshead, but in unfavourable years grew 

 very little.' ^ Mr. Peter Collinson, writing from Middlesex in 

 1 747, says, ' the vineyards turn to good profit, much wine being 

 made this year in England ;' and again in 1 748, ' my vineyards 

 are very ripe ; a considerable quantity of wine will this year be 

 made in England.' ^ However, the attempt made to grow 

 vines on the underclifif at Ventnor at the end of the eighteenth 

 century by Sir Richard Worsley ended in dismal failure, and 

 it is probable that the English climate in its normal years 

 seldom produced good grapes out of doors whatever it may 

 have done in exceptionally hot ones, unless we assume that it 

 has changed considerably, for which there is little ground. 



Hartlib was no friend of commons ; they made the poor idle 

 and trained them for the gallows or beggary, and there were 

 fewest poor where there were fewest commons, ■* as in Kent — 

 a statement re-echoed by many observant writers ; he also 

 recommends enclosures, because they gave warmth and conse- 

 quent fertility to the soil. He tells us that an effort had been 



» Ed. 1686, p. 380. 



* R. Bradley, A General Treatise of Husbandry (ed. 1 726), ii. 52. 



' Tooke, History of Prices, i. 44. Brandy was made in the eighteenth 

 century from grapes grown in the Beaulieu vineyards in Hampshire, and 

 a bottle of it long kept at the abbey. — Hampshire Notes and Queries, 

 vi. 62. There are two vineyards to-day, of %\ and 4 acres respectively, 

 on the estates of the Marquis of Bute in Glamorganshire ; but a vintage is 

 only obtained once in four or five years from them, and they are not 

 profitable. * Compleat Husbandman, 16^%^. ^2. 



