the turnips were to be followed by clover. All these, says Weston,
were already grown in England, but 'there is as much difference
between what groweth here and there as is between the same thing which
groweth in a garden and that which groweth wild in the fields'.
Worlidge soon after recommended that clover be sown on barley or oats
about the end of March or in April, and harrowed in, or by itself; and
says, with optimism equal to Weston's, one acre of clover will feed
you as many cows as 6 acres of ordinary grass and make the milk
richer.[318]

It has been noticed that the price of wool altered little during the
century, and from the private accounts of Sir Abel Barker[319] of
Hambleton, in the County of Rutland, we learn that in 1642 he sold his
wool to his 'loving friend Mr. William Gladstone' for L1 a tod, though
by 1648 it had gone up to 29s., a good price for those days. During
the Civil War some of Barker's horses were carried off for the service
of the State, and he values them at L8 a piece, a fair price then.
Some years later, for mowing 44 acres of grass he sets down in his
account L2 7s. 0d., for making the same L2 3s. 0d., and stacking it
3s.

Simon Hartlib, a Dutchman by birth and a friend of John Milton,
published his _Legacy_ in 1651, containing both rash statements and
useful information. We certainly cannot believe him when he states
that pasture employs more hands than tillage. His estimate of a good
crop of wheat was from 12 to 16 bushels per acre, and he speaks
strongly of the great fluctuations in prices, for he had known barley
sell at Northampton at 6d. a bushel, and within 12 months at 5s., and
wheat in London in one year varied from 3s. 6d. to 15s. a bushel. The
enormous number of dovecotes was still a great nuisance, and the
pigeons were reckoned to eat 6,000,000 quarters of grain annually.
Hartlib recommends his countrymen to sow 'a seed commonly called Saint
Foine, which in England is as much as to say Holy Hay,' as they do in
France: especially on barren lands, advice which some of them
followed, and in Wilts., soon after, sainfoin is said to have so
improved poor land that from a noble (6s. 8d.) per acre, the rent had
increased to 30s.[320] They were also to use 'another sort of fodder
which they call La Lucern at Paris for dry and barren grounds'. So
wasteful were they of labour in some parts that in Kent were to be
seen 12 horses and oxen drawing one plough.[321]

The use of the spa