th objects, but if a good fat cow come in his way, he
stands dumb and astonished, and though his haste be never so great, wilt
fix here half an hours contemplation. His habitation is some poor
thatched roof, distinguished from his barn by the loop-holes that let
out smoak, which the rain had long since washed through, but for the
double ceiling of bacon on the inside, which has hung there from his
grand-sires time, and is yet to make rashers for posterity. He
apprehends Gods blessings only in a good year, or a fat pasture, and
never praises him but on _good ground_."

Such were the men who were to be reached by the agricultural literature
of the day! Yet, notwithstanding this unpromising audience, scarcely a
year passed but some talker was found who felt himself competent to
expound the whole art and mystery of husbandry.

Adam Speed, Gent., (from which title we may presume that he was no
Puritan,) published a little book in the year 1626, which he wittily
called "Adam out of Eden." In this he undertakes to show how Adam, under
the embarrassing circumstance of being shut out of Paradise, may
increase the product of a farm from two hundred pounds to two thousand
pounds a year by the rearing of rabbits on furze and broom! It is all
mathematically computed; there is nothing to disappoint in the figures;
but I suspect there might be in the rabbits.

Gentleman Speed speaks of turnips, clover, and potatoes; he advises the
boiling of "butchers' blood" for poultry, and mixing the "pudding" with
bran and other condiments, which will "feed the beasts very fat."

The author of "Adam out of Eden" also indulges himself in verse, which
is certainly not up to the measure of "Paradise Lost." This is its
taste:--

"Each soyl hath no liking of every grain,
Nor barley nor wheat is for every vein;
Yet know I no country so barren of soyl
But some kind of come may be gotten with toyl.
Though husband at home be to count the cost what,
Yet thus huswife within is as needful as that:
What helpeth in store to have never so much,
Half lost by ill-usage, ill huswifes, and such?"

The papers of Bacon upon subjects connected with rural life are so
familiar that I need not recur to them. His particular suggestions,
however sound in themselves, (and they generally are sound,) did by no
means measure the extent of his contribution to the growth of good
husbandry. But the more thorough methods of investigation whic