204 



Wisdom and Folly of Ancient Book-Farmers. [June, 



industry is strewn with the wreckage of those who have tried 

 to grow rich by short cuts. 



When true science began to speak, it had to remove a mass 

 of suspicion engendered by the quacks who professed to speak 

 in her name. Agricultural chemistry dates from the discovery 

 of the composition of air at the close of the eighteenth century. 

 Before that time the prejudices entertained by agriculturists 

 against the unverified theories of book-farmers were often 

 justified. They rested on a sure instinct. But rural ruts were 

 so deep that they restricted the horizon. Old agricultural 

 writers often recommended practices, now in universal use, a 

 century before they were adopted. Their newfangled notions 

 might have enriched the great-grandfather instead of the 

 great-grandson. It may be interesting to collect a few illus- 

 trations. At least they emphasise the importance of keeping 

 the eyes open. They show that some of the methods which 

 from 1780 to 1870 made British agriculture famous, were 

 anticipated and discussed in theory more than a century and a 

 half before they were adopted in practice. 



16th Century Literature. — The history of agricultural litera- 

 ture printed in English begins with the 16th century. 

 In 1520 a Dutch bookseller, named John Dome, carried on his 

 business at Oxford. His trade was especially brisk at the two 

 great annual fairs in May and October. In his day-book for 

 that year he enters his sales. He sold one copy of 



Husbandry " at one penny, and 3 copies of " Medecens voer 

 Hors " at two pence each. Both books have disappeared. 

 They have been thumbed out of existence. 



The true father of the English literature of the farm is John 

 Fitzherbert. He was a Derbyshire man, whose Bohe of Hus- 

 bandry e was printed in 1528. He did not presume to write on 

 farming till he had accumulated a practical experience of 

 40 years. In this restraint he set a good example, which has 

 not always been followed. A shrewd hard-headed man, he 

 wrote a sensible book. Even in those days Derbyshire was 

 famous as a horse-breeding county. Fitzherbert owned " 60 

 mares or more." He knew the trade. He had as little faith 

 in a horse-dealer or a " horse-leche " as in a " potycarye." 

 " It were harde," he says, " to truste the best of them." His 

 object in writing seems mainly to have been to demonstrate 

 the superiority of a farm in separate occupation to a farm 

 cultivated on the prevalent system of a tenancy in common. 

 The few improvements which he suggests, and the arguments 



