CHAPTER VII.
AGRICULTURE.
[THE late Mr. Thos. Davis, of Longleat, Steward to the Marquess of Bath, drew up an admirable “View of the Agriculture of the County of Wilts”, which was printed by the Board of Agriculture in 1794. 8vo.—J. B.]
CONSIDERING the distance of place where I now write, London, and the distance of time that I lived in this county, I am not able to give a satisfactorie account of the husbandry thereof. I will only say of our husbandmen, as Sir Thom. Overbury does of the Oxford scholars, that they goe after the fashion; that is, when the fashion is almost out they take it up: so our countrey-men are very late and very unwilling to learne or be brought to new improvements.
[It was scarcely a reproach to the Wiltshire husbandmen to be far behind those of more enlightened counties, when, in the seat of learning, where the mental faculties of the students ought to have been continually exercised and cultivated, and not merely occupied in learning useless Greek and Latin, the “Oxford scholars” followed, rather than led, the fashion. Agricultural societies were then unknown, farmers had little communication with distant districts, and consequently knew nothing of the practice of other places; rents were low, and the same families continued in the farms from generation to generation, pursuing the same routine of Agriculture which their fathers and grandfathers had pursued “time out of mind”. In the days of my own boyhood, nearly seventy years ago, I spent some time at a solitary farmhouse in North Wiltshire, with a grandfather and his family, and can remember the various occupations and practices of the persons employed in the dairy, and on the grazing and corn lands. I never saw either a book or newspaper in the house; nor were any accounts of the farming kept.—J. B.]
The Devonshire men were the earliest improvers. I heard Oliver Cromwell, Protector, at dinner at Hampton Court, 1657 or 8, tell the Lord Arundell of Wardour and the Lord Fitzwilliams that he had been in all the counties of England, and that the Devonshire husbandry was the best: and at length we have obtained a good deal of it, which is now well known and need not to be rehearsed. But William Scott, of Hedington, a very understanding man in these things, told me that since 1630 the fashion of husbandry in this country had been altered three times over, still refining.
Mr. Bishop, of Merton, first brought into the south of Wiltshire the improvement by burn-beking or Denshiring, about 1639. He learnt it in Flanders; it is very much used in this parish, and their neighbours doe imitate them: they say ’tis good for the father, but naught for the son, by reason it does so weare out the heart of the land.
[The reader will find many observations of this nature, and on analogous subjects, in the manuscript, which it has not been thought desirable to print. Among the rest are several pages from John Norden’s “Surveyor’s Dialogue”, containing advice and directions respecting agriculture, of which Aubrey says, “though they are not of Wiltshire, they will do no hurt here; and, if my countrymen know it not, I wish they might learn”.—J. B.]
The wheate and bread of this county, especially South Wilts, is but indifferent; that of the Vale of White Horse is excellent. King Charles II. when he lay at Salisbury, in his progresse, complained that he found there neither good bread nor good beer. But for the latter, ’twas the fault of the brewer not to boil it well; for the water and the mault there are as good as any in England.
The improvement by cinque-foile, which now spreads much in the stone—brash lands, was first used at North Wraxhall by Nicholas Hall, who came from Dundery in Somersetshire, about the yeare 1650.
George Johnson, Esq. counsellour-at-law, did improve some of his estate at Bowdon-parke, by marling, from 6d. an acre to 25sh. He did lay three hundred loades of blew marle upon an acre.
Sir William Basset, of Claverdoun, hath made the best vinyard that I have heard of in England. He sayes that the Navarre grape is the best for our climate, and that the eastern sunn does most comfort the vine, by putting off the cold. Mr. Jo. Ash, of Teffont Ewyas, has a pretty vineyard of about six acres, made anno 1665. Sir Walter Erneley, Baronet, told me, a little before he died, that he was making one at Stert, I thinke, neer the Devizes.
The improvement of watering meadows began at Wyley, about 1635, about which time, I remember, we began to use them at Chalke. Watering of meadows about Marleburgh and so to Hungerford was, I remember, about 1646, and Mr. John Bayly, of Bishop’s Down, near Salisbury, about the same time made his great improvements by watering there by St. Thomas’s Bridge. This is as old as the Romans; e.g. Virgil, “Claudite jam rivos, pueri, sat prata biberunt”. Mr. Jo. Evelyn told me that out of Varro, Cato, and Columella are to be extracted all good rules of husbandry; and he wishes that a good collection or extraction were made out of them.
INCLOSING.—Anciently, in the hundreds of Malmesbury and Chippenham were but few enclosures, and that near houses. The north part of Wiltshire was in those dayes admirable for field-sports. All vast champian fields, as now about Sherston and Marsfield. King Henry the 7 brought in depopulations, and that inclosures; and after the dissolution of the abbeys in Hen. 8 time more inclosing. About 1695 all between Easton Piers and Castle Comb was a campania, like Coteswold, upon which it borders; and then Yatton and Castle Combe did intercommon together. Between these two parishes much hath been enclosed in my remembrance, and every day more and more. I doe remember about 1633 but one enclosure to Chipnam-field, which was at the north end, and by this time I thinke it is all inclosed. So all between Kington St. Michael and Dracot Cerne was common field, and the west field of Kington St. Michael between Easton Piers and Haywood was inclosed in 1664. Then were a world of labouring people maintained by the plough, as they were likewise in Northamptonshire. ’Tis observed that the inclosures of Northamptonshire have been unfortunate since, and not one of them have prospered.
Mr. Toogood, of Harcot, has fenced his grounds with crab-tree hedges, which are so thick that no boare can gett through them. Captain Jones, of Newton Tony, did the like on his downes. Their method is thus: they first runne a furrow with the plough, and then they sow the cakes of the crabbes, which they gett at the verjuice mill. It growes very well, and on many of them they doe graffe.
Limeing of ground was not used but about 1595, some time after the comeing in of tobacco. (From Sir Edw. Ford of Devon.)
Old Mr. Broughton, of Herefordshire, was the man that brought in the husbandry of soap ashes. He living at Bristoll, where much soap is made, and the haven there was like to have been choak’t up with it, considering that ground was much meliorated by compost, &c. did undertake this experiment, and having land near the city, did accordingly improve it with soap ashes. I remember the gentleman very well. He dyed about 1650, I believe near 90 yeares old, and was the handsomest, well limbed, strait old man that ever I saw, had a good witt and a graceful elocution. He was the father of Bess Broughton, one of the greatest beauties of her age.
Proverb for apples, peares, hawthorns, quicksetts, oakes:
“Sett them at All-hallow-tyde, and command them to grow;
Sett them at Candlemass, and entreat them to grow.”
Butter and Cheese. At Pertwood and about Lidyard as good butter is made as any in England, but the cheese is not so good. About Lidyard, in those fatt grounds, in hott weather, the best huswives cannot keep their cheese from heaving. The art to keep it from heaving is to putt in cold water. Sowre wood-sere grounds doe yield the best cheese, and such are Cheshire. Bromefield, in the parish of Yatton, is so—sower and wett—and where I had better cheese made than anywhere in all the neighbourhood.
Somerset proverb:
“If you will have a good cheese, and hav’n old,
You must turn’n seven times before he is cold.”
Jo. Shakespeare’s wife, of Worplesdowne in Surrey, a North Wiltshire woman, and an excellent huswife, does assure me that she makes as good cheese there as ever she did at Wraxhall or Bitteston, and that it is meerly for want of art that her neighbours doe not make as good; they send their butter to London. So it appeares that, some time or other, when there in the vale of Sussex and Surrey they have the North Wiltshire skill, that halfe the cheese trade of the markets of Tedbury and Marleborough will be spoiled.
Now of late, sc. about 1680, in North Wiltshire, they have altered their fashion from thinne cheeses about an inch thick, made so for the sake of drying and quick sale, called at London Marleborough cheese, to thick ones, as the Cheshire cheese. At Marleborough and Tedbury the London cheese-mongers doe keep their factors for their trade. [At the close of the last century Reading was the principal seat of the London cheese factors, who visited the different farms in Wiltshire once in each year to purchase the cheese, which was sent in waggons to Reading: often by circuitous routes in order to save the tolls payable on turnpike roads.—J. B.]
Maulting and Brewing. It is certain that Salisbury mault is better than any other in the West; but they have no more skill there than elsewhere. It is the water there is the chiefest cause of its goodnesse: perhaps the nitrousnesse of the maulting floores may something help.
[Aubrey devotes several pages to these subjects. He particularly commends “The History of Malting, or the method of making Malt, practised at Derby, described for R. T. Esq. by J. F. (John Flamsteed), January 1682-3”, which was printed in “A Collection of Letters for ye Improvement of Husbandry and Trade”, No. 7, Thursday, June 15, 1682. This paper by Flamsteed, which is of considerable length, is inserted by Aubrey in both his manuscripts: a printed copy in the original at Oxford, and a transcript in the Royal Society’s fair copy.—J. B.]
It may be objected how came that great astronomer, Mr. John Flamsteed, to know so much the mystery of malsters. Why, his father is a maulster at Derby; and he himself was a maulster, and did drive a trade in it till he was about twenty yeares of age, at what time Sir Jonas Moore invited him to London. [The best memoir of Flamsteed will be found in “An Account of the Rev. John Flamsteed, the first Astronomer Royal, compiled from his own manuscripts and other authentic documents never before published. To which is added his British Catalogue of Stars, corrected and enlarged. By Francis Baily, Esq. &c. &c. Printed by order of the Lords Commissioners of the Admiralty. London, 1835”. Such is the title of a large quarto volume which my late esteemed friend and neighbour Mr. Baily edited and wrote, con amore; and which contains not only a curious autobiography of the first Astronomer Royal of Great Britain, but numerous letters, documents, and miscellaneous information on the science of astronomy as it was known in Flamsteed’s time, and up to the time of the publication of the volume. This work was printed at the expense of the government, and presented to public colleges and societies, to royal and public libraries, and to many persons distinguished in science and literature. Hence it may be regarded as a choice and remarkable literary production. Some curious particulars of Flamsteed’s quarrel with Sir Isaac Newton, respecting the printing of his “Historia Coelestis”, are given in Mr. Baily’s volume, which tend to shew that the latter, in conjunction with Halley and other persons, perseveringly annoyed and injured Flamsteed in various ways, and for a considerable time. Some of the admirers of Newton’s moral character having attempted to extenuate his conduct, Mr. Baily published a Supplement to his work, in which he shews that such attempts had completely failed.—J. B.]