INTRODUCTION 



saved a 100 by his crafty way of setting to 

 work. Elsewhere he mentions that a bad 

 piece of work on the part of a vain-glorious 

 carpenter cost him over ^2000. But his 

 book must have bitterly disappointed any one 

 who tried to get real practical information on 

 either of his subjects ; his wandering mind 

 flies off anywhere, wholly irrelevant anec- 

 dotes are begun and never finished, and real 

 statistics are the last things he would con- 

 descend to work out for us. Still, he states 

 that his demesne at New Court was let for 

 ^40 a year, and " is now worth ^"300 " ; that 

 one meadow, for which he got ^5 yearly, 

 now yields 1$ in hay and aftermath alone ; 

 that if at the end of four years' " drownings " 

 your outlay of ^500 has not made itself 

 ^2000 or ^3000, "your choyce" (of land) 

 " is bad, and luck worse." He offered a 

 neighbour 1 5 a year for a hundred acres of 

 arable (that being its rental) on a four years' 

 agreement, at the end of which time Bow- 

 land was to have a twenty-one years' lease 

 of it at 100 a year, all cost of putting up 

 sluices, &c., to be Rowland's; but on the 

 entering of the twenty-one years' lease the 

 neighbour was to put down ^300, which, 

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