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Commoner.’ With the ‘ Lord Generall’ he pleaded for an Agricultural Holdings 
Act and the other legislative measures required by Improvers. To the ‘ Indus- 
trious Reader ’ he expounded the reasons tor the methods of his book, and com- 
mented on the work of previous authors, commending Sir Francis Bacon’s 
“Naturall History’ as ‘ worthy of high esteeme, it is full of Rarities and true 
Philosophy.’ He exhorted the army to set themselves to the improvement of 
the land now that they have the ‘goodness and welcomeness of a Calme after a 
storm.’ But it is in the epistle to the ‘Honourable Society of the Houses of 
the Court and Universities’ that chief interest lies for us, for here we find an 
appeal for the systematic study of agriculture in words that recall the classical 
writers. Blith showed that agriculture required the close study of the learned, 
and that the societies (i.e., the Colleges) of the Universities might if they wished 
do much for its advancement. He approaches them as a suppliant with no sug- 
gestion that they should abandon their ‘sublimer Notions,’ but with the hope 
that they may be induced to regard agriculture as a recreation, so that, as he 
says, ‘you may step a little into the field and Country and cast away an hour or 
two upon this Subject at your leisure.’ He adds, ‘You that have the Theorick, 
may easiest discover the Mysteries of the Practick, and from you have I found 
most encouragement to this work, and seen most experiences of good husbandry 
than from any, and from you too I expect and waite for more discoveries of some 
thing I scarce know what to name it, which lies yet in obscurity, but I will 
call it the Improvement of the Improver.’ 
Were we not now concerned with the spirit rather than with the form of the 
improvement, an interesting parallel might be drawn between the topics which 
Blith considers of greatest importance and those which to-day are engaging 
attention. In his epistle to the Society, for example, there is an appeal to the 
learned to give their attention to Applied Science. Discussing the progress of 
the Dutch, Blith deplores that policy which Englishmen afterwards termed 
laisser faire. He says, ‘Our niceness in not nursing the fruits of our own 
bowells hath given them the opportunity to Improve our native commodities to 
the advance of their Manufacturidge to our shame, their praise’; then address- 
ing members of the Universities he adds, ‘I speak to wise men whom I would 
have more publique men. . . . Let me entreat you for the Peoples and your own 
posterity sake .. . put your shoulders to the work, greater things remaine and 
larger Improvements are yet to be discovered.’ 
The earnest advocacy of Blith, the Essays of ‘my good friend Mr. Samuell 
Hartleps,’ and the energy of landowners like Sir Richard Weston led to a demand 
for the records of experiments, and in 1658 there was issued the first series of 
abstracts of agricultural experiments with which I am acquainted, under the 
title ‘Adam out of Eden.’ The experiments recorded by the author, Ad. Speed, 
are of considerable interest ; but I mention him for another reason. He appears 
to have made a living by propounding improvements of an imaginary character. 
He wrote tracts for noblemen and others, containing estimates of the profits to 
be gained by adopting new methods. Blith scathingly refers to him as ‘ Mr. 
Speed that superlative Improver,’ and remarks that so long as his books were 
private ‘I could bear it, and suffer wiser than myself to bee fooled because I was 
not wise enough as to beware of him, but now that they come to be sold in the 
Stationers’ Shops, and spread abroad the country, to deceive, and beguile the 
Nation, I cannot forbear.’ This was written in 1652; as my edition of ‘Adam 
out of Eden’ is dated 1659, it is clear that the nation continued to be ‘ beguiled ’ 
for a considerable period by this particular Adam, the forerunner of a numerous 
family. Whenever there is a revival of interest in agriculture he flourishes; 
the new manure, the ravaging insect, the blighting fungus, all serve to bring 
‘ Adam out of Eden,’ and so long as an interested and gullible public exists ‘that 
superlative Improver Mr. Speed’ will be found among us. The pamphlet and 
the stationers’ shop have become antiquated; the Adam of. to-day has other 
methods, which I will not venture to particularise. After all, it is a healthy 
sign. It is only when the public thirst is deep that Adam gets his chance, and 
like Blith we must resign ourselves now and again to ‘ bee fooled,’ for is it not 
one of the methods by which the Improver is improved ? 
Walter Blith’s appeal for the assistance of the learned did not long remain 
unanswered. At the time his ‘ English Improver Improved’ was published a 
