ad been made by James I to encourage the growth of mulberry
trees and the breeding of silkworms, the lords-lieutenant of the
different counties being urged to see to it, but it had little
effect.[333]

The number of different sorts of wheat was by this time considerable.
Hartlib gives the white, red, bearded ('which is not subject to
mildews as others'); some sorts with two rows, others with four and
six; some with one ear on a stalk, others with two; the red stalk
wheat of Bucks; winter wheat and summer wheat. There were also twenty
varieties of peas that he knew, and the white, black, naked. Scotch,
and Poland oats. Markham adds the whole straw wheat, the great brown
pollard, the white pollard, the organ, the flaxen, and the chilter
wheat.

There was a sad lack of enterprise in the breeding of stock now and
for many generations before; indeed, it may be doubted if this
important branch of farming, except perhaps in the case of sheep, was
much attended to until the time of Bakewell and the Collings. In
Elizabeth's time a Frenchman had twitted England with having only
3,000 or 4,000 horses worth anything, which was one of the reasons
that induced the Spaniards to invade us.[334] 'We are negligent, too,
in our kine, that we advance not the best species.'

The size of cattle at this date, however, seems to have been greater
than is often stated. The Report of the Select Committee on the
Cultivation of Waste Lands in 1795, states that the average weight,
dressed, of cattle at Smithfield in 1710 was only 370 lb.,[335] yet
the Household Book of Prince Henry at the commencement of the
seventeenth century says that an ox should weigh 600 lb. the four
quarters, and cost about L9 10s., a sheep about 45 lb., so that the
latter were apparently relatively smaller than the oxen. In 1603 oxen
were sold at Tostock in Suffolk weighing 1,000 lb. apiece, dead
weight.[336] According to the records of Winchester College, the oxen
sold there in the middle of the century averaged, dressed, about 575
lb.; in 1677, 35 oxen sold there averaged 730 lb. 'Some kine,' it was
said at the end of the century, 'have grown to be very bulky and a
great many are sold for L10 or L12 apiece; there was lately sold near
Bury a beast for L30, and 'twas fatted with cabbage leaves. An ox near
Ripon weighed, dressed, 13-1/4 cwt.'[337] They were, of course,
chiefly valued as beasts of draught, and no doubt the one Evelyn saw
in 1649, 'bred in Kent, 17 foot in