System of Farming Practiced by Ijord Ijeicester« 
333 
and luxuriant moderns, so were they during the middle 
ages, and all the varieties and modes of treatment are 
here described. 
Bees, that magic sound, that has awakened the cu¬ 
pidity of the parsimonious, the appetite of the glutton¬ 
ous, the song of the poet, the sentiment of the moral¬ 
ist, and the grave deductions of the lawgiver, states¬ 
man, and political economist, from time immemorial, 
seems to excite all our author’s zeal, and for forty pages 
lie discourses on their then mysterious and undiscover¬ 
ed habits, their laws, good government, industry and 
exemplary habits. All the poetry and prose that can 
be mustered, is invoked to do them justice. The 
queen was then universally designated as the king. 
Their fidelity to him is shadowed forth in the quaint 
old nasal psalmody translation of that day, from Virgil. 
“ On him they cast their eyes- and gard him day and 
night, 
And oft they beare him on their backes, in his defence 
they fight, 
But if he chance to dye, then all is dasht and donne, 
Their coams asunder downe they teare, and all to ruin 
runne.” 
Their preparation for repose after the weary toils of 
the day, is thus cosily depicted: 
c< They trimme theyr wings, and set theyr legs in frame, 
Till every one himself, hath throughly drest, 
Then synging at theyr doores awhyle they game, 
Till one giues warnyng for to goe to bedde. 
Then downe they lay to rest theyr sleepie head.” 
To prevent capsizing in a gale, the ancient bees were 
accustomed to carry small stones in their feet ee as 
Botes in balast be.” The drone, the gentleman of the 
commonwealth, was appropriately enough, styled the 
theefe . <£ He feedes like a lubber of the sweate of his 
fellows, yet serveth he for breeding and bringing up of 
the young bees, and when done, he is thrust out of the 
hive. 
For such ambitious bee princes, as are forever lead¬ 
ing their otherwise staid, and well-to-do-in-the-world- 
people abroad on fools errands, wasting their own 
time and interfering with other peoples, he recom¬ 
mends depriving of their wings, “ that so this too busie- 
headed leader being depriued of his sailes, will keepe 
at home in spite of las teeth.” The receipts for 
breeding bees will be convenient for such as have a de¬ 
ficiency ; and which, strange as it may seem, we recol¬ 
lect to have heard detailed in our boyish days, in some 
of the remote villages of New England, with all the 
gravity of established and incontrovertible axioms, bv 
the descendants of those ancient pilgrims, who possi¬ 
bly might have been some of the descendants of Barna- 
be himself: 
Of steere that strangled is, are children strangely bred, 
Of horse engendered is the Waspe, and Bees of Bullock 
ded. 
For a young oxe or steere, being strangled, corrupted and 
cast into some such place, where the putrified vapor can¬ 
not breath out, and store of herbs, and flowers agreeing 
with the nature of the bees, thrust into the body, as 
thyme, cassia, and such like, wherewith the vapor may 
be tempered, you shall quickly hereof have bees, as 
you may of the horse, waspes and hornets—as Virgil 
sayeth: 
The chaynes unchaste of Venus they detestj 
To fyle themselves with fylthe lecherie 
They judge unmete, nor wyl be so increast, 
But from the plants and pleasant flowers sweete, 
They fetche their tender broode. 
Another fashion is, to frame a little house four square, 
with a window on every side tenne cubits square and 
high. A young fatte steere being brought hither, and 
his nose and ears, and all other open vents being stopped 
with linnen dipt in pitch, must be beaten with numbers 
of clubs to death, so as both the bones and flesh may 
be broken without any blood: for of the blood cometh 
the bee. Afterward the house being deep strawed with 
thyme, and the Bullocke being laide uppon his backe, 
doores and windowes must be close shut up and so 
plaistered that no ayre can enter.. Three weeks after 
the windowes must be opened on eury side, saue where 
the wind bloweth strongest, and the ayre let in p when 
it hath been wel cooled and refreshed the windowes 
must be shut up againe, and being opened the 11th day 
afterward you shall find a housefullof bees, and nothing 
left of the oxe, save the homes, the heare and the 
bones ; the kings being engendered of the braine and 
the other bees of the body. 
Pvllarivs.—I like not so costly comming by bees. 
Melisseus. —Of the same opinion is Columella : 1 
tell you but the order of the old skilful fellowes, you 
may choose whether you will try it.” And here we 
must take leave of the illustrious Conradus Heres- 
bacheus, Counsellor of mighty Princes, and ambassador 
to illustrious courts; and his scarcely less distinguished 
elucidator and commentator, Barnabe Googe, Esquire. 
System of Farming 'practised by the late Lord Lei¬ 
cester. —The last No. of the Royal Agrl. Journal of 
England received, is unusually rich in original papers 
of great interest to the farmer. Some extracts will be 
noticed in our present No., and the want of room only 
prevents our increasing them. The items which follow 
are some of the subjects treated in it. 
The first article is an excellent one from Earl Spen¬ 
cer, on the improvement of the estate of the late Lord 
Leicester. This was accomplished in a few years, by 
the adoption of an improved mode of cropping, and the 
application of marl, dug beneath the light sandy sur¬ 
face, that everywhere abounded on the estate. The 
simultaneous introduction of the best variety of cattle, 
sheep, and swine, enabled him to carry out and perfect 
the improvements of the soil, and his practice became 
a model for the imitation, not only of his own country, 
but in other parts of the world. Close observation, 
and a careful investigation of the merits of rival breeds, 
was his only criterion, and when his own experiment, long 
and accurately tried, convinced him of an error in his 
operations, he was ready at once to reject them, and sub¬ 
stitute such as were grounded on the fullest experience. 
In stock he commenced with the Bakcwell Long 
Homs, but gradually allowed the Devons to usurp their 
place, till 1812, since which, they have been the only 
cattle he has bred, they being admirably adapted to the 
light soil of Holkham. In sheep, he first commenced 
with the Norfolk, but subsequently adopted the South 
Downs entirely. Into this breed, of late years, he has 
infused a dash of the Hampshire Down, by which, he 
conceived he got more constitution, a greater value in 
wool, and a larger proportion of lean meat in the car¬ 
cass. He was also in the habit recently, of using a 
long wooled ram on his pure South Down ewes, by 
which he got an excellent and profitable sheep for the 
market. His pigs were made up of various crosses, 
after a fair trial of their respective merits. The im¬ 
provement ran through all his operations, manures, til¬ 
lage and crops, and resulted in reclaiming one of the 
poorest estates in England, and converting it into one 
of the best, and with this important addition, that it 
was constantly and abundantly repaying all the im¬ 
provements by its annual return of crops. 
