OF THE AIR AND SOIL AND COMMODITIES OF THIS ISLAND.
[1577, Book I., Chapter 13; 1587, Book I., Chapter 18.]
The air (for the most part) throughout the island is such as by reason in
manner of continual clouds is reputed to be gross, and nothing so pleasant
as that of the main. Howbeit, as they which affirm these things have only
respect to the impediment or hindrance of the sunbeams by the
interposition of the clouds and of ingrossed air, so experience teacheth
us that it is no less pure, wholesome, and commodious than is that of
other countries, and (as Cæsar himself hereto addeth) much more temperate
in summer than that of the Gauls, from whom he adventured hither. Neither
is there any thing found in the air of our region that is not usually seen
amongst other nations lying beyond the seas. Wherefore we must needs
confess that the situation of our island (for benefit of the heavens) is
nothing inferior to that of any country of the main, wheresoever it lie
under the open firmament. And this Plutarch knew full well, who affirmeth
a part of the Elysian Fields to be found in Britain, and the isles that
are situated about it in the ocean.
The soil of Britain is such as by the testimonies and reports both of the
old and new writers, and experience also of such as now inhabit the same,
is very fruitful, and such indeed as bringeth forth many commodities,
whereof other countries have need, and yet itself (if fond niceness were
abolished) needless of those that are daily brought from other places.
Nevertheless it is more inclined to feeding and grazing than profitable
for tillage and bearing of corn, by reason whereof the country is
wonderfully replenished with neat and all kind of cattle; and such store
is there also of the same in every place that the fourth part of the land
is scarcely manured for the provision and maintenance of grain. Certes
this fruitfulness was not unknown unto the Britons long before Cæsar's
time, which was the cause wherefore our predecessors living in those days
in manner neglected tillage and lived by feeding and grazing only. The
grazers themselves also then dwelled in movable villages by companies,
whose custom was to divide the ground amongst them, and each one not to
depart from the place where his lot lay (a thing much like the Irish
Criacht[173]) till, by eating up of the country about him, he was enforced
to remove further and seek for better pasture. And this was the British
custom, as I learn, at first. It hath been commonly reported that the
ground of Wales is neither so fruitful as that of England, neither the
soil of Scotland so bountiful as that of Wales, which is true for corn and
for the most part; otherwise there is so good ground in some parts of
Wales as is in England, albeit the best of Scotland be scarcely comparable
to the mean of either of both. Howbeit, as the bounty of the Scotch doth
fail in some respect, so doth it surmount in other, God and nature having
not appointed all countries to yield forth like commodities.
But where our ground is not so good as we would wish, we have--if need
be--sufficient help to cherish our ground withal, and to make it more
fruitful. For, beside the compest that is carried out of the husbandmen's
yards, ditches, ponds, dung-houses, or cities and great towns, we have
with us a kind of white marl which is of so great force that if it be cast
over a piece of land but once in threescore years it shall not need of any
further compesting. Hereof also doth Pliny speak (lib. 17, cap. 6, 7, 8),
where he affirmeth that our marl endureth upon the earth by the space of
fourscore years: insomuch that it is laid upon the same but once in a
man's life, whereby the owner shall not need to travel twice in procuring
to commend and better his soil. He calleth it _marga_, and, making divers
kinds thereof, he finally commendeth ours, and that of France, above all
other, which lieth sometime a hundred foot deep, and far better than the
scattering of chalk upon the same, as the Hedui and Pictones did in his
time, or as some of our days also do practise: albeit divers do like
better to cast on lime, but it will not so long endure, as I have heard
reported.
There are also in this island great plenty of fresh rivers and streams, as
you have heard already, and these thoroughly fraught with all kinds of
delicate fish accustomed to be found in rivers. The whole isle likewise is
very full of hills, of which some (though not very many) are of exceeding
height, and divers extending themselves very far from the beginning; as we
may see by Shooter's Hill, which, rising east of London and not far from
the Thames, runneth along the south side of the island westward until it
come to Cornwall. Like unto these also are the Crowdon Hills, which,
though under divers names (as also the other from the Peak), do run into
the borders of Scotland. What should I speak of the Cheviot Hills, which
reach twenty miles in length? of the Black Mountains in Wales, which go
from [174] to [174] miles at the least in length? of the Clee Hills in
Shropshire, which come within four miles of Ludlow, and are divided from
some part of Worcester by the Leme? of the Crames in Scotland, and of our
Chiltern, which are eighteen miles at the least from one end of them,
which reach from Henley in Oxfordshire to Dunstable in Bedfordshire, and
are very well replenished with wood and corn, notwithstanding that the
most part yield a sweet short grass, profitable for sheep? Wherein albeit
they of Scotland do somewhat come behind us, yet their outward defect is
inwardly recompensed, not only with plenty of quarries (and those of
sundry kinds of marble, hard stone, and fine alabaster), but also rich
mines of metal, as shall be shewed hereafter.
In this island the winds are commonly more strong and fierce than in any
other places of the main (which Cardane also espied): and that is often
seen upon the naked hills not guarded with trees to bear and keep it off.
That grievous inconvenience also enforceth our nobility, gentry, and
communalty to build their houses in the valleys, leaving the high grounds
unto their corn and cattle, lest the cold and stormy blasts of winter
should breed them greater annoyance; whereas in other regions each one
desireth to set his house aloft on the hill, not only to be seen afar off,
and cast forth his beams of stately and curious workmanship into every
quarter of the country, but also (in hot habitations) for coldness sake of
the air, sith the heat is never so vehement on the hill-top as in the
valley, because the reverberation of the sun's beams either reacheth not
so far as the highest, or else becometh not so strong as when it is
reflected upon the lower soil.
But to leave our buildings unto the purposed place (which notwithstanding
have very much increased, I mean for curiosity and cost, in England,
Wales, and Scotland, within these few years) and to return to the soil
again. Certainly it is even now in these our days grown to be much more
fruitful than it hath been in times past. The cause is for that our
countrymen are grown to be more painful, skilful, and careful through
recompense of gain, than heretofore they have been: insomuch that my
_synchroni_ or time fellows can reap at this present great commodity in a
little room; whereas of late years a great compass hath yielded but small
profit, and this only through the idle and negligent occupation of such as
daily manured and had the same in occupying. I might set down examples of
these things out of all the parts of this island--that is to say, many of
England, more out of Scotland, but most of all out of Wales: in which two
last rehearsed, very other little food and livelihood was wont to be
looked for (beside flesh) more than the soil of itself and the cow gave,
the people in the meantime living idly, dissolutely, and by picking and
stealing one from another. All which vices are now (for the most part)
relinquished, so that each nation manureth her own with triple commodity
to that it was before time.
The pasture of this island is according to the nature and bounty of the
soil, whereby in most places it is plentiful, very fine, batable, and such
as either fatteth our cattle with speed or yieldeth great abundance of
milk and cream whereof the yellowest butter and finest cheese are made.
But where the blue clay aboundeth (which hardly drinketh up the winter's
water in long season) there the grass is speary, rough, and very apt for
bushes: by which occasion it becometh nothing so profitable unto the owner
as the other. The best pasture ground of all England is in Wales, and of
all the pasture in Wales that of Cardigan is the chief. I speak of the
same which is to be found in the mountains there, where the hundredth part
of the grass growing is not eaten, but suffered to rot on the ground,
whereby the soil becometh matted and divers bogs and quick-moors made
withal in long continuance: because all the cattle in the country are not
able to eat it down. If it be accounted good soil on which a man may lay a
wand over night and on the morrow find it hidden and overgrown with grass,
it is not hard to find plenty thereof in many places of this land.
Nevertheless such is the fruitfulness of the aforesaid county that it far
surmounteth this proportion, whereby it may be compared for batableness
with Italy, which in my time is called the paradise of the world, although
by reason of the wickedness of such as dwell therein it may be called the
sink and drain of hell: so that whereas they were wont to say of us that
our land is good but our people evil, they did but only speak it; whereas
we know by experience that the soil of Italy is a noble soil, but the
dwellers therein far off any virtue or goodness.
Our meadows are either bottoms (whereof we have great store, and those
very large, because our soil is hilly) or else such as we call land meads,
and borrowed from the best and fattest pasturages. The first of them are
yearly and often overflown by the rising of such streams as pass through
the same, or violent falls of land-waters, that descend from the hills
about them. The other are seldom or never overflown, and that is the cause
wherefore their grass is shorter than that of the bottoms, and yet is it
far more fine, wholesome, and batable, sith the hay of our low meadows is
not only full of sandy cinder, which breedeth sundry diseases in our
cattle, but also more rowty, foggy, and full of flags, and therefore not
so profitable for store and forrage as the higher meads be. The difference
furthermore in their commodities is great; for, whereas in our land
meadows we have not often above one good load of hay, or peradventure a
little more in an acre of ground (I use the word _carrucata_, or
_carruca_, which is a wain load, and, as I remember, used by Pliny, lib.
33, cap. 2), in low meadows we have sometimes three, but commonly two or
upwards, as experience hath oft confirmed.
Of such as are twice mowed I speak not, sith their later math is not so
wholesome for cattle as the first; although in the mouth more pleasant for
the time: for thereby they become oftentimes to be rotten, or to increase
so fast in blood, that the garget and other diseases do consume many of
them before the owners can seek out any remedy, by phlebotomy or
otherwise. Some superstitious fools suppose that they which die of the
garget are ridden with the nightmare, and therefore they hang up stones
which naturally have holes in them, and must be found unlooked for; as if
such a stone were an apt cockshot for the devil to run through and solace
himself withal, while the cattle go scot-free and are not molested by him!
But if I should set down but half the toys that superstition hath brought
into our husbandmen's heads in this and other behalf, it would ask a
greater volume than is convenient for such a purpose, wherefore it shall
suffice to have said thus much of these things.
The yield of our corn-ground is also much after this rate following.
Throughout the land (if you please to make an estimate thereof by the
acre) in mean and indifferent years, wherein each acre of rye or wheat,
well tilled and dressed, will yield commonly sixteen or twenty bushels, an
acre of barley six-and-thirty bushels, of oats and such like four or five
quarters, which proportion is notwithstanding oft abated toward the north,
as it is oftentimes surmounted in the south. Of mixed corn, as peas and
beans, sown together, tares and oats (which they call bulmong), rye and
wheat (named miscelin), here is no place to speak, yet their yield is
nevertheless much after this proportion, as I have often marked. And yet
is not this our great foison comparable to that of hotter countries of the
main. But, of all that I ever read, the increase which Eldred Danus
writeth of in his _De imperie Judæorum in Æthiopia_ surmounteth, where he
saith that in the field near to the Sabbatike river, called in old time
Gosan, the ground is so fertile that every grain of barley growing doth
yield an hundred kernels at the least unto the owner.
Of late years also we have found and taken up a great trade in planting of
hops, whereof our moory hitherto and unprofitable grounds do yield such
plenty and increase that there are few farmers or occupiers in the country
which have not gardens and hops growing of their own, and those far better
than do come from Flanders unto us. Certes the corruptions used by the
Flemings, and forgery daily practised in this kind of ware, gave us
occasion to plant them here at home; so that now we may spare and send
many over unto them. And this I know by experience, that some one man by
conversion of his moory grounds into hopyards, whereof before he had no
commodity, doth raise yearly by so little as twelve acres in compass two
hundred marks--all charges borne towards the maintenance of his family.
Which industry God continue! though some secret friends of Flemings let
not to exclaim against this commodity, as a spoil of wood, by reason of
the poles, which nevertheless after three years do also come to the fire,
and spare their other fuel.
The cattle which we breed are commonly such as for greatness of bone,
sweetness of flesh, and other benefits to be reaped by the same, give
place unto none other; as may appear first by our oxen, whose largeness,
height, weight, tallow, hides, and horns are such as none of any other
nation do commonly or may easily exceed them. Our sheep likewise, for good
taste of flesh, quantity of limbs, fineness of fleece, caused by their
hardness of pasturage and abundance of increase (for in many places they
bring forth two or three at an eaning), give no place unto any, more than
do our goats, who in like sort do follow the same order, and our deer come
not behind. As for our conies, I have seen them so fat in some soils,
especially about Meall and Disnege, that the grease of one being weighed
hath peised very near six or seven ounces. All which benefits we first
refer to the grace and goodness of God, and next of all unto the bounty of
our soil, which he hath endued with so notable and commodious
fruitfulness.
But, as I mean to intreat of these things more largely hereafter, so will
I touch in this place one benefit which our nation wanteth, and that is
wine, the fault whereof is not in our soil, but the negligence of our
countrymen (especially of the south parts), who do not inure the same to
this commodity, and which by reason of long discontinuance is now become
inapt to bear any grapes almost for pleasure and shadow, much less then
the plain fields or several vineyards for advantage and commodity. Yet of
late time some have essayed to deal for wine (as to your lordship also is
right well known). But sith that liquor, when it cometh to the drinking,
hath been found more hard than that which is brought from beyond the sea,
and the cost of planting and keeping thereof so chargeable that they may
buy it far better cheap from other countries, they have given over their
enterprises without any consideration that, as in all other things, so
neither the ground itself in the beginning, nor success of their travel,
can answer their expectation at the first, until such time as the soil be
brought as it were into acquaintance with this commodity, and that
provision may be made for the more easiness of charge to be employed upon
the same.
If it be true that where wine doth last and endure well there it will grow
no worse, I muse not a little wherefore the planting of vines should be
neglected in England. That this liquor might have grown in this island
heretofore, first the charter that Probus the Emperor gave equally to us,
the Gauls, and Spaniards, is one sufficient testimony. And that it did
grow here (beside the testimony of Beda, lib. 1., cap. 1) the old notes of
tithes for wine that yet remain in the accounts of some parsons and vicars
in Kent, elsewhere, besides the records of sundry suits, commenced in
divers ecclesiastical courts, both in Kent, Surrey, etc., also the
enclosed parcels almost in every abbey yet called the vineyards, may be a
notable witness, as also the plot which we now call East Smithfield in
London, given by Canutus, sometime king of this land, with other soil
thereabout, unto certain of his knights, with the liberty of a Guild which
thereof was called Knighton Guild. The truth is (saith John Stow, our
countryman and diligent traveller in the old estate of this my native
city) that it is now named Portsoken Ward, and given in time past to the
religious house within Aldgate. Howbeit first Otwell, the archovel, Otto,
and finally Geffrey Earl of Essex, constables of the Tower of London,
withheld that portion from the said house until the reign of King Stephen,
and thereof made a vineyard to their great commodity and lucre. The Isle
of Ely also was in the first times of the Normans called Le Ile des
Vignes. And good record appeareth that the bishop there had yearly three
or four tun at the least given him _nomine decimæ_, beside whatsoever
over-sum of the liquor did accrue to him by leases and other excheats
whereof also I have seen mention. Wherefore our soil is not to be blamed,
as though our nights were so exceeding short that in August and September
the moon, which is lady of moisture and chief ripener of this liquor,
cannot in any wise shine long enough upon the same: a very mere toy and
fable, right worthy to be suppressed, because experience convinceth the
upholders thereof even in the Rhenish wines.
The time hath been also that woad, wherewith our countrymen dyed their
faces (as Cæsar saith), that they might seem terrible to their enemies in
the field (and also women and their daughters-in-law did stain their
bodies and go naked, in that pickle, to the sacrifices of their gods,
coveting to resemble therein the Ethiopians, as Pliny saith, lib. 22, cap.
1), and also madder have been (next unto our tin and wools) the chief
commodities and merchandise of this realm. I find also that rape oil hath
been made within this land. But now our soil either will not, or at the
leastwise may not, bear either woad or madder. I say not that the ground
is not able so to do, but that we are negligent, afraid of the pilling of
our grounds, and careless of our own profits, as men rather willing to buy
the same of others than take any pain to plant them here at home. The like
I may say of flax, which by law ought to be sown in every country town in
England, more or less; but I see no success of that good and wholesome
law, sith it is rather contemptuously rejected than otherwise dutifully
kept in any place in England.
Some say that our great number of laws do breed a general negligence and
contempt of all good order, because we have so many that no subject can
live without the transgression of some of them, and that the often
alteration of our ordinances doth much harm in this respect, which (after
Aristotle) doth seem to carry some reason withal, for (as Cornelius Gallus
hath)--
"_Eventus varios res nova semper habet._"
But very many let not to affirm that the greedy corruption of the
promoters on the one side, facility in dispensing with good laws and first
breach of the same in the lawmakers and superiors and private respects of
their establishment on the other, are the greatest causes why the
inferiors regard no good order, being always so ready to offend without
any faculty one way as they are otherwise to presume upon the examples of
their betters when any hold is to be taken.[175] But as in these things I
have no skill, so I wish that fewer licences for the private commodity but
of a few were granted (not that thereby I deny the maintenance of the
prerogative royal, but rather would with all my heart that it might be yet
more honourably increased), and that every one which by fee'd friendship
(or otherwise) doth attempt to procure ought from the prince that may
profit but few and prove hurtful to many might be at open assizes and
sessions denounced enemy to his country and commonwealth of the land.
Glass also hath been made here in great plenty before, and in the time of
the Romans; and the said stuff also, beside fine scissors, shears, collars
of gold and silver for women's necks, cruises and cups of amber, were a
parcel of the tribute which Augustus in his days laid upon this island. In
like sort he charged the Britons with certain implements and vessels of
ivory (as Strabo saith); whereby it appeareth that in old time our
countrymen were far more industrious and painful in the use and
application of the benefits of their country than either after the coming
of the Saxons or Normans, in which they gave themselves more to idleness
and following of the wars.
If it were requisite that I should speak of the sundry kinds of mould, as
the cledgy, or clay, whereof are divers sorts (red, blue, black, and
white), also the red or white sandy, the loamy, roselly, gravelly, chalky,
or black, I could say that there are so many divers veins in Britain as
elsewhere in any quarter of like quantity in the world. Howbeit this I
must need confess, that the sand and clay do bear great sway: but clay
most of all, as hath been and yet is always seen and felt through plenty
and dearth of corn. For if this latter (I mean the clay) do yield her full
increase (which it doth commonly in dry years for wheat), then is there
general plenty: whereas if it fail, then have we scarcity, according to
the old rude verse set down of England, but to be understood of the whole
island, as experience doth confirm--
"_When the sand doth serve the clay,
Then may we sing well-away;
But when the clay doth serve the sand,
Then is it merry with England._"
I might here intreat of the famous valleys in England, of which one is
called the Vale of White Horse, another of Evesham (commonly taken for the
granary of Worcestershire), the third of Aylesbury, that goeth by Thame,
the roots of Chiltern Hills, to Dunstable, Newport Pagnel, Stony
Stratford, Buckingham, Birstane Park, etc. Likewise of the fourth, of
Whitehart or Blackmoor in Dorsetshire. The fifth, of Ringdale or Renidale,
corruptly called Kingtaile, that lieth (as mine author saith) upon the
edge of Essex and Cambridgeshire, and also the Marshwood Vale: but,
forsomuch as I know not well their several limits, I give over to go any
further in their description. In like sort it should not be amiss to speak
of our fens, although our country be not so full of this kind of soil as
the parts beyond the seas (to wit, Narbonne, etc.), and thereto of other
pleasant bottoms, the which are not only endued with excellent rivers and
great store of corn and fine fodder for neat and horses in time of the
year (whereby they are exceeding beneficial unto their owners), but also
of no small compass and quantity in ground. For some of our fens are well
known to be either of ten, twelve, sixteen, twenty, or thirty miles in
length, that of the Girwies yet passing all the rest, which is full sixty
(as I have often read). Wherein also Ely, the famous isle, standeth, which
is seven miles every way, and whereunto there is no access but by three
causies, whose inhabitants in like sort by an old privilege may take wood,
sedge turf, etc., to burn, likewise hay for their cattle and thatch for
their houses of custom, and each occupier in his appointed quantity
throughout the isle; albeit that covetousness hath now begun somewhat to
abridge this large benevolence and commodity, as well in the said isle as
most other places of this land.
Finally, I might discourse in like order of the large commons, laid out
heretofore by the lords of the soil for the benefit of such poor as
inhabit within the compass of their manors. But, as the true intent of the
givers is now in most places defrauded, insomuch that not the poor tenants
inhabitating upon the same, but their landlords, have all the commodity
and gain. Wherefore I mean not at this present to deal withal, but reserve
the same wholly unto the due place, whilst I go forward with the rest,
setting down nevertheless by the way a general commendation of the whole
island, which I find in an ancient monument, much unto this effect--
"Illa quidem longè celebris splendore, beata,
Glebis, lacte, favis, supereminet insula cunctis,
Quas regit ille Deus, spumanti cujus ab ore
Profluit oceanus," etc.
And a little after--
"Testis Lundoniaratibus, Wintonia Baccho,
Herefordia grege, Worcestria frugeredundans,
Batha lacu, Salabyra feris, Cantuaria pisce,
Eboraca sylvis, Excestria clara metallis,
Norwicum Dacis hybernis, Cestria Gallis,
Cicestrum Norwagenis, Dunelmia præpinguis,
Testis Lincolnia gens infinita decore,
Testis Eli formosa situ, Doncastria visu," etc.