36 
ENGLISH FARMING IN THE SIXTEENTH CENTURY. 
[Nature and Art, July 1, 1866. 
cultural chemistry was still regarded in much the 
same light as alchemy, or the forbidden art. But 
even though much ignorance prevailed as to the 
true principles of agriculture, and though reasons 
adduced for adopting this or that course are often 
trifling or utterly false, there is yet a good deal of 
sound sense in many of the treatises of the sixteenth 
century. Gervase Markham, for example, bids his 
pupils learn the nature of the soil — • 
“ quid ferre recuset 
Quid valeat.” .... 
And “ not to force it to beare that which is con- 
trarie to it.” His directions, also, for the improve- 
ment of light lands by dressings of marl and dung 
are in accordance with modern practice; but he is 
wholly at a loss how to temper strong clays and 
heavy soils, except by deepening the furrows so 
that they may take the place of drains. Fitzherbert, 
in the same manner, speaks of marl as the best 
manure that exists — adding that “it is enough to 
manure your grounds once in seven or twelve years 
with it.” It must, however, be borne in mind that 
the rise of lime was very rare in these days — in 
fact, Markham and other contemporaneous writers 
do not even allude to it — and we are therefore 
driven to conclude that marl was employed as a 
bulky substitute for it. Aubrey says — “ Limeing 
of ground was not used but about 1595, some time 
after the coming in of tobacco.” 
The crops which occupied the farmer’s attention 
differed in kind and degree from those which are 
now his care. Of course the cereals — wheat, barley, 
and oats — were then, as now, the chief productions 
of the farm ; but, of these, oats were cultivated to 
a greater extent, and formed the food both of men 
and horses in most parts of England. They were 
also employed, indiscriminately with barley and 
wheat, in the manufacture of beer. Bye was largely 
grown, as supplying a cheap bread-stuff, though 
one neither so wholesome nor agreeable as oatcake. 
It is difficult to obtain a satisfactory average of the 
price of corn three centuries ago, for the fluctuations 
were rapid and excessive. Within a few months 
the extremes of plenty and of famine Avere some- 
times reached, and we read that in one year the 
poor were barely kept alive by doles of rye-bread, 
Avliile in another “ they traversed the markets to 
find out the finer wheats.” Clover and artificial 
grasses were unknown ; the former was not intro- 
duced into England till the middle of the seven- 
teenth century. Indeed, we may almost call Sir 
Bichard Weston, Avho introduced sainfoin, the 
founder of modern English husbandry. He was an 
ambassador to the King of Bohemia during the 
Commonwealth, and, on his return from abroad, 
pointed out to his countrymen the advantage of the 
field-cultivation of turnips as a winter food for 
cattle. To him, also, we owe, in all probability, the 
foundation of the alternate system of husbandry. 
Potato-culture, now so important a feature in 
Scotch and English farming, was hardly knoAvn 
three centuries ago. For, though Drake and Baleigh 
had brought the plant to England and drawn 
attention to its value, yet for a long time it Avas 
used rather as a sweetmeat than as a vegetable. 
We find it classed with oranges, lemons, and con- 
serves, as a suitable present to a gentleman of rank 
in the sixteenth century, and, even as late as 1 620, 
Taylor, the Water-Poet, sings of it thus : — 
“ Spanish potatoes are accounted dainty, 
And English parsneps are coarse meat, though plenty : 
But if these Berries or those Rootes were scant, 
They would be thought as rare, though little wont, 
That we should eate them and a price allow, 
As much as Strawberryes and Potatoes now.” 
We have also seen, in an Elizabethan cookery-book, 
a receipt “ to make a tarte,” Avhich begins thus : — 
“ Take two quinces, and tAvo or three burre rootes 
and a potaton, and pare your potaton and scrape 
your rootes and put them into a quart of Avine,” Ac. 
It may not be generally knoAvn among housewives 
that excellent jelly can be made from potatoes. 
With regard to the other branch of farming, Ave 
may say that the improvements have been made 
within narrower limits. It Avas laid doAvn by 
Fitzherbert as an axiom that agriculture and stock- 
keeping must go together “ the husbandman 
liveth by plowing and soAving of his corne or by 
rearing and breeding of cattell, and not the one 
Avithout the other, because they be adjuncts and 
may not be discovered.'' Oxen were considered 
more profitable than horses for ploughing and pur- 
poses of draught, but as meat was a rare luxury 
Avith the bulk of the population, not much attention 
Avas paid to the breeding of cattle for the market. 
It may amuse our readers to know what were con- 
sidered the marks of a good cow in the sixteenth 
century : — “ Beetle-broAved and sterne of looke, her 
head and neck big, and from her throate hanginge 
doAvne to her shanks a large and long dewlappe ; 
let her sides be proportionlesse and great, and every 
part of her, even her very foote, as bigge as bigge 
may be in general, the more bull-like a coav 
is, the better.” Sheep Avere a triple source of profit 
to the farmer, and consequently received his utmost 
care. In his choice he Avould probably be guided 
by Fitzherbert’s advice, and select those that were 
“ big-boned and well-woolled.” The wool was then, 
as it now is in Australia, of more importance than 
the meat, and, in the fifteenth and sixteenth cen- 
turies, the cultivation of the soil Avas absolutely 
prejudiced by the undue favour shown to the wool- 
trade. Arable land was in all directions converted 
into pasture, in order to find food for the immense 
flocks of sheep, sometimes amounting to twenty 
thousand, which belonged to single individuals. 
Legislation rather increased than removed the 
danger, and the contest on the subject between the 
clothiers and the landowners forms one of the most 
curious chapters in the history of British economy. 
But it was not through the wool-stapler and the 
butcher alone that sheep Avere a source of profit to 
the farmer; for Fitzherbert assures us that, “in 
some countries, as in Suffolke, Essex, and Kent, 
with many others, they milke their evves, a gaine 
equatt to the rest." The Cotswokl and Aylesbury 
Avere considered the best breeds for all purposes ; 
