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 spade was long looked askance at by English husbandmen; old men in Surrey had told Hartlib that they knew the first gardeners that came into those parts to plant cabbages and ‘colleflowers’, and to sow turnips, carrots, and parsnips, and that they gave L8 an acre for their land.  The latter statement must be an exaggeration, as it is equivalent to a rent of about L40 in our money; but we may give some credence to him when he says that the owner was anxious lest the spade should spoil his ground, ’so ignorant were we of gardening in those days.’  Though it was not the case in Elizabeth’s time, by now the licorice, saffron, cherries, apples, pears, hops, and cabbages of England were the best in the world; but many things were deficient, for instance, many onions came from Flanders and Spain, madder from Zealand, and roses from France.[322] ’It is a great deficiency in England that we have not more orchards planted.  It is true that in Kent, and about London, and in Gloucestershire, Herefordshire, and Worcestershire[323] there are many gallant orchards, but in other country places they are very rare and thin, I know in Kent some advance their ground from 5s. per acre to L5 by this means’, and 30 acres of cherries near Sittingbourne had realized L1,000 in one year.  His recipe for making old fruit trees bear well savours of a time when old women were still burnt as witches.  ’First split his root, then apply a compost of pigeon’s dung, lees of wine, or stale wine, and a little brimstone’.  The tithes of wine in Gloucestershire were ‘in divers parishes considerably great’, and wine was then made in Kent and Surrey, notably by Sir Peter Ricard, who made 6 or 8 hogsheads yearly.[324] There is no doubt that the vine has been grown in the open in England from very early times until comparatively recent ones.  The Britons were taught to plant it by the Romans in A.D. 280.[325] In Domesday there are 38 examples of vineyards, chiefly in the south central counties.  Neckham, who wrote in the twelfth century, says the vineyard was an important adjunct to the mediaeval mansion.[326] William of Malmesbury praised the vines and wine of Gloucestershire; and says that the vine was either allowed to trail on the ground, or trained to small stakes fixed to each plant.  Indeed, the mention of them in mediaeval chronicles is frequent.