To felle woode for use and to sell Folio. To shrede, lop, and croppe trees 58 Chesemen shuld shrede, lop, and croppe trees 58 To sell woodde and timber 59 To kepe sporyng woodde 60 Necessary thynges belongyng to graffyng Howe to graffe.. 60 61 61 62 62 63 64 65 65 66 66 69 70 71 71 71 72 73 74 74 75 76 77 77 78 In the information given to the young gentleman the author rays: "And over and beside all this boke, I will advise him to rise betime in the morning, according to the verse before spoke of 'Sanat, sanctificat, et ditat surgere maue'--and to his closes, pastures, fields, and specially by the hedges; and to have in his purse a payre of tables, and when he seeth anything that wolde be amended to wryte it in his tables-as if he fynde any horses, mares, beastes, shepe, swyne, or geese, in his pastures that be not his own; and, perauventure, though they be his owne, he wolde not have them to go there; or to fynde a gap, or a sherde in his hedge, or any water standynge in his pasture uppon his grasse, wherby he maye take double herte, bothe losse of his grasse and rotting of his shepe and calves; and also, of standynge water in his corne fieldes at the landes endes or sides, and howe he would have his landes plowed, donged, sturred, or sowen; and his corne weeded or shorne, or his cattell shifted out of one pasture into another; and to loke what dyching, quicsettyng, or plashing, is necessary to be had; and to oversee his shepeherd how he handleth and ordreth his shepe, and his servantes how they plowe and do their workes; or if any gate be broken down, or want any stawes, and go not lyghtly to open and tyne, and that it do not traise, and that the windes blowe it not open, with many mo necessary thynges that are to be looked upon. For a man alwaye wanderynge, or goinge aboute, fyndeth or seeth that is amysse and wolde be amended; and as soone as he seeth any such defautes, than let hym take oute his tables and wryte the defautes; and when he commeth home to dinner, supper, or at nyght, than let hym call his bayley, or his heed servante, and soo shewe hym the defautes that they may be shortly amended; and, when it is amended, than let hym put it out of his tables. For this used I to doo X or XI yeres and more, and thus let hym use dayely, and in shorte space he will sette moche thynges in goode order, but dayely it wyll have mendynge; A meane to put away ydle thoughts in praing 82 and yf he canne not wryte, lette hym nycke the defautes uppon a stycke, and to shewe his bayely, as I sayde before. Also take hede, both erly and 85 late, at all tymes, what maner of people resorte and 86 comme to thy house, and the cause of theyr commynge, and specially if theye brynge with them pitchers, cannes, tancardes, bottelles, bagges, wallettes, or bushell pokes; for if thy servantes be not true they maye doo thee great hurte, and themselfe lyttel avauntage, wherefore they wold be well looked uppon. And he that hath two true servantes, a man servante and an other a woman servante, he hath a great treasure, for a trewe servante will do justly hymnself, and if he see his felowes do amysse he wyll byd them do no more so, What is the greatest offence that a man may for if they do he wyll shewe his master thereof― | Newly corrected and compiled by Sir Richarde and if he do not this he is not a trewe servante." de Benese. Imprinted at London, by Thomas Colwell. The directions given in folio 64 to a gentleman's servant, that he may leave nothing behind him at an inn, are worth transcribing : : “Purse, dagger, cloke, nyghtcap, kerchief, boryng bonne, baget and shoes, speare mase, Loode, halter, saddel clothes, hatte, with thy horse combe, bowe, arrowes, sworde, buckler, horne, leifshe, gloves, stringe, and thy bracer; penne, paper, inke, parchesmente, readwayes, pommes, cakes, thou remembre; penknyfe, combe, thymble, nedle, threde, poyntee, lest thy garthe breake; bodkyne, knyfe, fyngel; give thy horse meate; see he be stowed well; make mery; sing if you can ; take hede to thy gere that thou lose none.” Fitzherbert seems to have understood the word “ husbandry” in the enlarged and proper meaning, as he gives directions in the husbandry of moral and religious conduct as well as in the husbandry | of the ground. Husbandry relates to every action and vocation of life, as does economy to the rules and regulations of all enterprizes and performances, and by no means to the pinching niggardliness of the necessary appliance, as is generally understood. Husbandry relates to all the members of the employment-economy directs the applications to every spe ial point. Our lengthy notice and quotations from Fitzherbert's book are intended to show the reader a specimen of the writing contained in the first English work on practical agriculture, and also the heads of the divided matter which forms the volume. The author was the first native of Britain that studied the nature of soils and the laws of vegetation with philosophical attention. On these he formed a theory confirmed by experience, and rendered the study pleasing as well as profitable | by realizing the principles of the ancients to the honour and advantage of his country. These books, being written at a time when philosophy | and science were but just emerging from that · gloom in which they had so long been buried, were doubtless replete with many errors, but they contained the rudiments of true knowledge, and revived the study and love of agriculture. IV. BENESE, 1535. Sir Richard Benese was Canon of Marton Abbey, near London. No memorials exist of this writer except the book on measuring land, to which his name is affixed. The copy in the British Museum is without date, and in black letter. The titlepage is “The Eoke of Measuring Land, as well as of Woodland, and Pasture in the Field; and to Compt the True Number of Acres of the Same." The book contains 112 duodecimo pages, figures of the shape of lands, the dimensions, and the contents. Two short chapters are added on measuring timber and stones. Three editions were published—in 1535, 1538, and the last without date, which is now mentioned. V.—TUSSER, 1557. Thomas Tusser was born about the year 1515, at Rivenhall, near Witham, in Essex, where his father, William Tusser, married a daughter of Thomas Smith, of Rivenhall, by whom he had five sons and four daughters. Hence our author referred to the heralds' book for the gentility of his family, and says he “was born of lineage good and gentle blood." The name and race, however, | have long been extinct. He was educated as a musician, and was soon placed as singing boy in the collegiate chapel of the castle of Wallingford; and, after frequent change of places and enduring many hardships, he was admitted into St. Paul's, where he attained considerable proficiency in music. He was sent to Eton school, and thence to Cambridge, where sickness interrupted his studies ; and, having left the University, he was employed about court, probably in his musical capacity, by the influence of his patron William Lord Paget. He appears to have been a retainer in this nobleman's family, and he mentions his lordship in the highest terms of panegyric. He remained ten years in this situation, and then, retiring into the country and marrying, became a farmer at Cattiwade, in the parish of Brantham, county of Suffolk, near the river Stour. Here he composed his book on husbandry, the first edition of which was published in 1557, and dedicated to his patron Lord Paget. This rude essay, in “one hundred points of good husbandry,” was the germ of his future and more elaborate work, and must have required at least several years' acquaintance with rural affairs. He may have experienced a reverse in farming, as he is found in Ipswich, where his wife died, at West Dereham, and at Norwich. He married a second time, but did not add to his happiness. He next obtained a singing-man's place in the cathedral of Norwich, then tried farming again at Fairsted, near his native place; and, again failing, he repaired to London, and, flying from the plague in 1574, he went to Cambridge. When the scourge abated he returned to London, and died there, as is generally supposed, about 1580, and was buried in St. Mildred's Church, in the Poultry, with an epitaph by himself, as recorded by Stowe— 'Here Thomas Tusser, clad in earth, doth lie, Tusser's second work, "Five Hundred Points of Good Husbandry," appeared in 1580, and must have been well received, as above twelve editions were printed within the first fifty years, and many others since that time. The best editions are of 1580 and 1585, but they are very scarce. In 1812 Dr. Mavor published a new edition, carefully collated and corrected, with a series of notes, georgical, illustrative and explanatory, a glossary, and other improvements. Tusser's book is written in quatrains, or stanzas of four verses each, in doggrel rhyme, and very obsolete. He gives the corn harvest, equally divided into ten parts : "1. One part cast forth, for rent due out of hand; 2. One other part, for seed to sow thy land; 3. Another part, leave parson for his tithe : 4. Another part, for harvest, sickle, and scythe, 5. One part, for plough-wright, cart-wright, knacker, and smith; 6. One part, to uphold thy teams that draw therewith; 7. One part, for servant, and workman's wages lay; 8. One part, likewise, for fill-belly, day by day; 9. One part, thy wife for needful things doth crave; 10. Thyself and child the last one part would have. "Who minds to quote Doth follow toiling plough. Thank God and say, For an author, the vicissitudes of the life of Tusser present a very uncommon variety of incident. He had no vicious extravagance, or any tincture of careless imprudence, and yet his desultory character did not thrive in any vocation. He failed in farming as his chief pursuit; and, although he may have been a good theorist for the time, his practice was much behind. He is said to have been a good-natured, cheerful man, a lover of economy, and far from meanness, as appears in many of his precepts, and always condemns the policy that would rather lose a pound than spend a shilling. He has heen thought an able farmer, and placed on a level with Varro, Columella, and Palladius, and probably more aptly with Hesiod. Both wrote in the infancy of husbandry, and gave good general precepts without going into detail, though Tusser has more of it than Hesiod. They address the minds as well as the lands by recommending industry and economy, and used verse as the more effectual means to propagate their doctrine. The precepts of Tusser are excellent, and show very much cool collected sense; but the temptations and perplexities of life very frequently overturn the maxims and resolutions of prudence, and create a wide discordance between the very best intentions and the results of circumstantial neces sity. Cultivated minds and lively imaginations do not always offer the steadiest and most effectual resistance to the shocks of adversity, and the rebuffs that attend almost every enterprize; and Tusser's singing gentility and courtly breeding may not have well accorded with the frugal care and persevering industry which are most essential to the success of every agricultural undertaking. Beyond most other. employments, farming requires the most active and energetic perseverance, combined with the most minute and careful attention. The following head-piece appeared in 1641:"Tusser, they tell me, when thou wert alive, Thou, teeahing thrift, thyself could never thrive; So, like the whetstone, many men are wont, To sharpen others, when themselves are blunt." Tusser divides the gross produce of the lands into ten purposes, of which the rent is only one distribution. He allows three-tenth parts to the farmer's maintenance, and the full half of the produce for expenses. These proportions differ vastly from the ratios which now obtain between the landowner, the farmer, and the expenses, in which the former gets from a fourth to one-half of the gross produce, or one-third in the average, and the farmer is left with two-thirds for himself and the expenses. The landowners now-a-days would look very shy at one-tenth part of the produce for rent; and Tusser seems to have had no idea of the interest of capital, or of allowing for the farmer's time. He calculates only for the maintenance of the farmer, which in his time may have been all that was expected from such employments as farming. The increase of population and of capital has completely overturned and reversed the arrangements of the primeval days of British agriculture. At the early age of literature in which Tusser lived, it was a grand conception of his mind to write agriculture in poetry, and dignify the ar with that refinement. He probably thought to grace an art that has never been adorned, and also to build its palace in its verse-an idea that has SCOT-GOOGE. never since that time occurred to the many wouldbe decorators of agriculture, but which may probably, in no great distance of time, be done in heroic verse by the writer of this biography, and thus join the company of Hesiod, Virgil, and Tusser. VI.-Scor, 1576. Reynolde Scot was a learned English gentleman, and the younger son of Sir John Scot, of Scots-hall, near Smeeth, in Kent. He was bred at Oxford, and gave himself up wholly to solid reading-to the perusal of obscure authors that had been neglected by the generality of scholars-and in times of leisure to husbandry and gardening, as appears by his book on a hop-garden, which was the first treatise written on that subject. He also wrote a book entitled "Scot's Discovery of Witchcraft," 401 pages quarto, 1562: the absurd and abominable pretences to which he seems to have first detected publickly, at least in our nation. Scot died in 1599. The first publication on the subject of hops appeared in 1576, and was entituled-"A perfite platform of a hoppe garden, and necessary instructions for the making and mayntenance thereof; with notes and rules for reformation of all abuses commonly practised therein, very necessary and expedient for all men to have which in any wise have to doe with hops. Now newly corrected and augmented by Reynolde Scot." There may have been an edition previous to the date here used, as Weston writes the author's appearance in 1574, and the "Bibliotheca Britannica" mentions two editions in 1573 and in 1578. We subjoin the contents of the work, as it claims, along with Fitzherbert's book on agriculture, the same priority on a special subject. 9 Page. 23 24 26 27 32 33 37 38 38 39 41 43 43 44 .. 45 47 49 51 53 53 54 Of the bedde or upper floor of the oste, 57 The reformation of a garden of wylde hoppes 56 60 To constitute a perfect platform, the author advises ground that is good for the purpose-a convenient standing, and a proper quantity. Good land he calls rich, mellow, and gentle, and the situation to have the sun shining upon it the greater part of the day. He advises to have a certain term of the land, least another man reap the fruit of labour and expense. He recommends the distance of seven or eight feet between the hills of plants, and two or three roots to be placed in one hole. Four poles, best of alder, are placed in each hole, set as now-adays, and leaning a little outward one from another. Throughout the work cuts are given of most of the performances, and the book shows a thorough ac3quaintance with the subject, of which the practice 4 is not very much altered in the present time. The oasts are neatly described and figured, the dried hops are to be brown and yet bright, and the fire is to be of great wood, and not too dry. The book is printed in the old English characters, with the headings of chapters and the titles in the modern 9 type. The getting up of the work is ahead of Fitz10 herbert's. Britain. The attempt had little success, and VIII. MASCALL, 1581. bility, to have been the father of Barnaby Googe, The four bookes of husbandry, as translated by Master of Magdalen College, Cambridge, who was Googe, underwent a second edition in 1586, and in incorporated at Oxford in 1605, when King James 1614 Gervase Markham republished the work with visited the city. He is said to have been of Albing- notes and illustrations, with the view of accomham, or Alvingham, in Lincolnshire, and grand-modating German agriculture to the climate of father to Barnaby Googe, Esq., who lived there in 1634. The epistle to the book of husbandry is dated at Kingston, February 1, 1557. His first publication was sonnets and epitaphs, and followed by the "Zodiake of Life." He translated, in 1577, "Foure bookes of husbandry, collected and printed at Cologne in 1573, by Conrad Henesbach, chancellor to the Duke of Cleves, in Germany; containing the whole art and trade of husbandrie, gardening, graffing, and planting; with the antiquitie and commendation thereof; newly Englished and increased by Barnaby Googe." On the last leaf, old English rules for purchasing land-in verse. His other works were numerous. The work on husbandry is managed in dialogues between persons who are three or four in number, and consists of question and reply. The first book is on arable ground, tillage, and pasture; the second on gardens, orchards, and woods; the third on feeding, breeding, and curing of cattle; the fourth on poultry, fowl, fish, and bees. The work is printed in old Eglish type, and contains 360 pages. The old English rules for purchasing land, are: First see that the land be clear Leonard Mascall wrote several books on agricultural subjects, and has always been reckoned a genius in that department of human industry. Nothing seems to have been known of his parentage, birth, education, or general employments: he only relates of himself that he was chief farrier to King James, and dedicated his work to Sir Edward Montague, Knight. "The husbandrye, ordring, and governmente of poultrie," was the first work published by Mascall, and is dated in 1581. It is a small 12 mo., of 154 pages, printed in black letter, and dedicated to Mistresse Catharine Woodford, wife to Maister James Woodford, Esq., and Cheese Clarke of the Kitchen to the Queenes Majestie. The matter is headed, "The nourishment and government of poultrie ;" and as the work is the first writing on that subject, the chapters are subjoined, as was done with Fitzherbert and Scot. In title of the seller; 3. And that it stand in danger 4. Of no woman's dowrie; 5. The signes and properties of a good henne See whether the tenure be bond or free, 6. And release of every fee-of-fee; The time best to set your yong hennes 7. See that the seller be of age, 8. And that it lie not in mortgage; Whether ataile be thereof found, 10. And whether it stand in statute bound; Of chickens newly hatched How to keepe egges long 9. Egges to gather and keepe Egges, to have all winter 11. Chickens of a later broode Make thy charter in warrantise, 17. To thee, thine heyres, assignes also; Of hennes that hatches abroad, as in bushes 18. Thus should a wise purchaser doe. Remedies against the flux 19. Against stopping of the belly in poultrie Googe gives the following authors as his authorities, some of whom were contemporary with Fitzherbert, but none are mentioned by him, and their works are wholly unknown. 20. Against lice and vermin in poultrie 21. Of vermin that bytes and stinges poultrie 22. Of sitting hennes that rise in weat and rainie dayes 23. What time to cut young cock chickens where and when to feede them To fatte hennes best The feeding of bigge chickens To feede or cramme young pullets Ordering and setting forth poultrie on mir agges Meate for hennes and other poultrie, and |