200 
NATURAL HISTORY OF SELBORNE. 
from the much smaller quantity of salted meat and fish now- 
eaten in these kingdoms ; from the use of linen next the skin ; 
from the plenty of better bread ; and from the profusion of fruits, 
roots, legumes, and greens, so common in every family. Three 
or four centuries ago, before there were any enclosures, sown- 
grasses, field-turnips, or field-carrots, or hay, all the cattle which 
had grown fat in summer, and were not killed for winter use, were 
turned out soon after Michaelmas to shift as they could through 
the dead months ; so that no fresh meat could be had in winter 
or spring. Hence the marvellous account of the vast stores of 
salted flesh found in the larder of the eldest Spencer* in the days 
of Edward the Second, even so late in the spring as the third of 
May. It was from magazines like these that the turbulent 
barons supported in idleness their riotous swarms of retainers 
ready for any disorder or mischief. But agriculture is now 
arrived at such a pitch of perfection, that our best and fattest 
meats are killed in the winter ; and no man need eat salted flesh, 
unless he prefers it, that has money to buy fresh. 
One cause of this distemper might be, no doubt, the quantity 
of wretched fresh and salt fish consumed by the commonalty at 
all seasons as well as in lent ; which our poor now would hardly 
be persuaded to touch. 
The use of linen changes, shirts or shifts, in the room of 
sordid and filthy woollen, long worn next the skin, is a matter of 
neatness comparatively modern ; but must prove a great means 
of preventing cutaneous ails. At this very time woollen instead 
of linen prevails among the poorer Welch, who are subject to 
foul eruptions. 
The plenty of good wheaten bread that now is found among 
all ranks of people in the south, instead of that miserable sort 
which used in old days to be made of barley or beans, may con- 
tribute not a little to the sweetening their blood and correcting 
their juices ; for the inhabitants of mountainous districts, to this 
day, are still liable to the itch and other cutaneous disorders, 
from a wretchedness and poverty of diet. 
As to the produce of a garden, every middle-aged person of 
observation may perceive, within his own memory, both in town 
and country, how vastly the consumption of vegetables is in- 
creased. Green-stalls in cities now support multitudes in a 
comfortable state, while gardeners get fortunes. Every decent 
* Viz. Six hundred bacons, eighty carcasses of beef, and six hundred muttons. 
