The epitome of the whole art of husbandry comprising all necessary directions for the improvement of it ... : together with the gentlemans heroick exercise, discoursing of horses, their nature and use ... : to which is annexed by way of appendix, a new method of planting fruit trees and improving of an orchard / by J.B. Gent.

Of Woad or Wade, the Land best for it, the Ʋ∣sage of it, and the Advantages thereby.

WOad is also a great Commodity, it lays the foundation for the solidity of ma∣ny Colours more: A Woaded colour is free from staining, excellent for holding its colour, nay, sad-holding colour must be woaded. It hath been one of the greatest Inrichments to the Masters thereof, until our late Wars, of any Fruit the Land did bear. It is called Glastum or Garden-Woad, by the Italians cal∣led Guedo, in Spanish and in French Pastel, in Dutch Wert, and in English Woad or Wade. It hath flat long Leaves like Reben Rubrum; the stalk is small and tender, the Leaves are of a blewish green colour. The seed is like an Ash-key or seed, but not so long, little blackish Tongues. The Root is white and simple. It is a very choice seed to grow and thrive well; it beareth a yellow Flower, and requires very rich Land, and very sound and warm, so that very warm Earth, either a little gravelly, or else sandish will do exceeding well; but the purer, warmer, solid Earth is best, and ex∣ceeding

rich Land, and though it should be mixed with a little Clay, it will do well, but it must be very warm. There is not much Land fit for this design in many Countries, especially your hardest Wood-land parts, you have in many of your great, deep, rich Pa∣sture many Hills and Hills-sides good Woad-Land, when the bottom-ground will do no service; but your chiefest is your home Corse, or lesser Ground lying near, and bordering about the Towns. Your best and naturallest Parts in England for Woad, are some Parts of Worcester-shire, Warwick-shire, Southward, Oxford-shire, Glocester-shire, Northampton-shire, Leicester-shire, some Parts of Rutland, Redford-shire, and Buckingham-shire, and some other places here and there: All these Parts have some admirable Woad-land in them. The Land must be sound, and at above twenty shillings an Acre to graze in at least, or else it will not be worth the woading. And to plow and sow Woad, it may be worth as much more as to graze, yea, sometimes more, if it be extraordinary rich Soil, and Trading good. And whereas some write, that it undoeth the Land, I answer as I judge in my own Breast, that in regard it is so often cut, and groweth so thick, and is so often weeding, that it must needs do so, as I believe all Corn doth draw out some of the Spirit thereof; but no more

then other Grain, if it could be so oft cut to grow again. Thus much I can say of it, that it prepares the Land exceedingly for Corn, and doth abate of the strength and super-richness, or rankness therof, which Corn would not well endure; for I am ready to maintain, that the richest Land is not best for Corn: For though the one may overburden, and be so rank; yet the other may bear as much to the Strike, and for goodness your middle-land beareth the Bell away for Corn, in my opinion. To ac∣quaint you with the use of Woad, I must do these three things. 1. Shew you how the Land must be prepared and sowed. 2. Shew you how it must be ordered, when that the leaf must be cut, and how ordered after the cutting of it. 3. And lastly, how it must be tempered and seasoned to make the best Woad for use and profit: But before I proceed, I must inform you, that this Commodity is not to be played withal, as you may do with Li∣quorish and Saffron, &c. to make Experiments of a little parcel, but a man must of necessity set forth and forward so much stock, and land, and seed, as may keep one Mill or two at work to make it into perfect Woad. It is the do∣ing of a great quantity, and carrying on a great stock that makes this work, and will car∣ry it on to profit and credit: Some have as much under hand, as will work six or eight

Mills. The charge of it is exceeding great in the management of it, and as well it payeth for all charges, as any Commodity I know of. The Ground must be of old Land, as aforesaid, and a tender Turse, and must be exceeding choicely plowed; if very hilly, they must be cast, and well cast, that you cast forth, lye not high to raise the Furrow: they usually plow outward, or cast all their Lands at the first plowing, and having broke the Ground with a Harrow, then they sow it, and sow a∣bout four Bushels or Strikes of an Acre, which done, then cover it, and harrow it very well and fine, and pick out the Clots, Turfes, and Stones, and lay it on the hollow places of the Ridge in heaps, as is the usual custom: But now I should rather chuse to take a little Cart with one Horse, and as the Boys and Children pick them up, cast them into the Cart, and carry them into some flank and hollow place, and lay them down to rot, or else mend some barren place, because they lose a good conside∣rable part of Land, and so of Wood too, which otherwise might be as good as the rest, and is now, by reason of the times, not worth so much. The Land that is lost is very conside∣rable, in regard it is so good of it self, and the stock so good and rich that is sowed upon it, that all even Ground had need be regained, that possibly may be. 2. I am to shew you

how it is to be husbanded, and when the Leaf must be cut, and how used, and how oft, &c. After the Land is sowed, and that it begins to come up, as soon as any Weed appears, it must be weeded, yea, it may be twice weeded, or more, if it requires before it be ready to cut; but if it be special good, and come thick, and cover the Ground well, it will ask the less weeding: to them that are exercised in this same Service, and have their Work and Work-folks at command, they will have it weeded for eight pence an Acre, and sometimes less: as soon as the Leaf is come to its full growth, which will be sometimes sooner, sometimes later, as the year is dryer or moister, more fruitful or less, which when you perceive at the full ripeness, set to cutting of it off. As soon as ever it is cut, your Mills being prepared, and great broad Fleaks, so many as may re∣ceive the Crop prepared, and planted upon Galleries or Stories made with Poles, Fir, Al∣der, or other Wood; your Mill is usually known, a large Wheel both in height, and bredth, and weight doth best, it is a double Wheel, and the Tooth or Ribs that cut the Wood, are placed from one side of the Wheel to the other, very thick, wrought sharp and keen at the edge, and as soon as the Woad is cut, and comes out of the field, it is to be put into the Mill, and ground one Kilne full after

another as fast as may be; the juyce of the Leaf must be preserved in it, and not lost by any means, and when it is ground, it is to be made in balls round, about the bigness of a Ball, without any composition at all, and then presently laid one by one upon the Fleaks to dry, and as soon as dried, which will be sooner or later, as the season is, they are to be taken down, and laid together, ••and more put in their places: But because all the circumstances will be too tedious to discourse, and the work is no common work, and very many not well versed therein, I will rather advise you to get a Workman from the Woad-works, which can carry it on artifically, rather then to ven∣ture the experimenting of so great Work up∣on Words and Rules. Good Woad may yield in a plentiful year five, or possibly six Crops, yea, ordinarily four, and yet sometimes but three: but the Winter Crop is of good worth, excellent for Sheep, conceived good against the Rot, and also it will maintain them well, and it will contain them in good heart, and strengthen them till sowing time again. The time of sowing is in the beginning and end of March. And thus when you have cut all your Crops one after another till Autumn, the de∣clining season will not ripen it again, and your Mill is at leisure, then you must proceed to the third Particular, which is to the ordering and

seasoning of it, and working it up to use, which must be done in the manner following: You must set your Mills to work again, to grind it all over, and then season it up, and so you may make it stronger or weaker, as you shall see occasion. There is so much difference betwixt Woad and Woad, that the Dyers, though so experimental, will hardly buy you any parcel till they have experimented it in colouring; and therefore for me to prescribe a Rule upon such uncertainties, I hold it not safe, the Woad-man that uses to make up three or four sorts of Woad, will make it up as he intends to friend a Customer. The first years tryal will put you into sufficient Experience: As the Woad yields many Crops, so each Crop is worse then the other; the first Crop is best, the second next, the third much worse, the fourth far worse then that, and the fifth worst of all; if you get a fifth, but that is not usual, four Crops is sufficient, and sometimes you must be content with three, and as the first Crop is usually (in a good year) ripe by the midst of June, so will the second be usually ripe in one month after that, and so every month, or thereabouts, each Crop will be ready, and if the latter end of the year prove kind, then you must expect a Crop the more. Now to know when the Woad is ripe, and to take it in the very season, is a fundamental

piece, which is when the Leaf is come to a full growth, and retains its perfect colour and lively greenness, then with all your might set so many hands to cutting of it, as that it do not fade, or wax pale or wan, before you have cut your Crop; for then it will begin to be over-ripe, and the less sap and marrow of it drinks in again, and will not yield store of juyce, which is the spirit of it, and best of the Woad. The Woad-man seasons the two first Crops together, and some season the third by it self, and the fourth by it self, some put the three first Crops together, which makes the worser Woad, but the very Virgin-Woad is the first and second, and the better they desire to make it, the more in∣tire they compound it, not confounding it with divers sorts. The manner of seasoning is thus; after every Crop is cut, grinded, bal∣led, and dryed, as dry as possibly it can be, and laid up in the Ball every Crop by it self, then you must take the first and second Crops, and grind them all over again together, or a∣part, as you please, but they must be then wrought as dust, as it were, in the Mill, and ground very well the first and second Crop, or so much as you will make of your best sort of Woad, and so laid upon the floor in a heat or Couch, and then you must mix it with water, and turn it over, and mix it again, and turn it

over, and give it so much water as that it will be soakt throughly, however you may over-soak and drown it, and that will be very pre∣judicial to it: It must be turned in the Couch once for three or four weeks together, and then every other day once for about a fort∣night, and then twice a week, till it comes to a right colour. At the first many men must be imployed, carrying water as hard as they can, till it be wet and well soaked, and that you may know the better how to temper it aright, you shall find it heat exceedingly in the Couch, which you must look to keep in a moderate condition, which over-heating you may pre∣vent with turning, that it over-heat not by any means; it may grow so hot, as you can pos∣sibly abide your hand in it, but not to exceed that heat: and how to know its seasons kind∣ly, and so will in time come to perfect rich Woad; you must observe that it will alter and change divers times: first it will hoar, mould, and frost, and smell exceeding strong, and then it will in a little time abate thereof, and grow towards a black colour, and then it will hoar and mould again, and change a little whitish, and after this second change, it will come to a perfect black, which the brighter and clearer colour, the better. This must be the Winters work, and it will be good for cold weather, and when it is thus wrought,

and comes to its colour, then you may lay it up, or heap it up, to lye for a Sale, putting divers Poles into each heap to the bottom, to open and keep it cool, and you must be sure it take not heat again; and thus all your sorts of Woad must be seasoned one after another, and especially all such that you can dry that Sum∣mer: but to tell you how to chuse the best Woad, is scarce in the power of the Woad∣man, who can but guess at it from that Expe∣rience he hath in the mixing of it; but it must be tryed by the Dyers, who, as we said, usual∣ly do so before they buy it. I shall end with the advantages thereof, which are very great. And first it is National, in that it sets many poor on work. It is the staple and chief of the Dyers Trade, layeth a foundation for all enduring and holding Colours, and much ad∣vantages Land in the Rent, it doubles or more, and in the usage of it upon this Husbandry, trebleth or quadrupleth it, and many times more: And then secondly, it is personally ad∣vantagious, the best Estates that have been got in all our rich upland Countries, have been got by it: at some seasons, and when they have a right Crop and good Markets, it will amount to as much more; it hath been sold from 20 to 30 l. the best Woad, and back again down to 6 l. a Tun.