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$Title{Description Of Elizabethan England
Chapter X}
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$Author{Harrison, William}
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$Subject{soil
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$Date{1577}
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Title:       Description Of Elizabethan England
Author:      Harrison, William
Date:        1577

Chapter X

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
Caesar 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 gazing 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 Caesar'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 graziers 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) 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 three-score 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 practice: 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 ( ^*) to ( ^*) 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.

[Footnote *: Here lacks. - H.]

     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 communality 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 very 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 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 onother. 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 quickmoors 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 afore said 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 meadowslwe 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
scotfree 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 Judaeorum
in Aethiopia 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 of 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 plantinf 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. I., cap. I) 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 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 saidhouse 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 decimae, 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 Caesar 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. I), 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." ^1

[Footnote 1: "An innovation has always mixed effects."]

     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. 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: weereas 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 it is 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, twelwe, 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 longe 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 praepinguis,
Testis Lincolnia gens infinita decore,
Testis Eli formosa situ, Doncastria visu," etc.