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About the year 1570, a certain Conrad Heresbach, who was Councillor to the Duke of Cleves, (brother to that unfortunate Anne of Cleves who was one of the wife-victims of Henry VIII.,) wrote four Latin books on rustic affairs, which were translated by Barnaby Googe, a Lincolnshire farmer and poet, who was in his day gentleman-pensioner to Queen Elizabeth.  Our friend Barnaby introduces his translation in this style:—­“I haue thought it meet (good Reader) for thy further profit & pleasure, to put into English these foure Bookes of Husbandry, collected & set forth by Master Conrade Heresbatch, a great & a learned Counceller of the Duke of Cleues:  not thinking it reason, though I haue altered & increased his worke, with mine owne readings & obseruations, joined with the experience of sundry my friends, to take from him (as diuers in the like case haue done) the honour & glory of his owne trauaile:  Neither is it my minde, that this either his doings or mine, should deface, or any waves darken the good enterprise, or painfull trauailes of such our countrymen, of England, as haue plentifully written of this matter:  but always haue, & do giue them the reuerence & honour due to so vertuous, & well disposed Gentlemen, namely, Master Fitz herbert, & Master Tusser:  whose workes may, in my fancie, without any presumption, compare with any, either Varro, Columella, or Palladius of Rome.”

The work is written in the form of a dialogue, the parties being Cono, a country-gentleman, Metella, his wife, Rigo, a courtier, and Hermes, a servant.  The first book relates to tillage, and farm-practice in general; the second, to orcharding, gardens, and woods; the third, to cattle; and the fourth, to fowl, fish, and bees.  He had evidently been an attentive reader of the older authors I have discussed, and his citations from them are abundant.  He had also opportunity for every-day observation in a region which, besides being one of the most fertile, was probably at that time the most highly cultivated in Europe; and his work may be regarded as the most important contribution to agricultural literature since the days of Crescenzi.  He reaffirms, indeed, many of the old fables of the Latinists,—­respects the force of proper incantations, has abiding faith in “the moon being aloft” in time of sowing, and insists that the medlar can be grafted on the pine, and the cherry upon the fir.  Rue, he tells us, “will prosper the better for being stolen”; and “If you breake to powder the horne of a Ram & sowe it watrying it well, it is thought it will come to be good Sperage” (Asparagus).  He assures us that he has grafted the pear successfully when in full bloom; and furthermore, that he has seen apples which have been kept sound for three years.

Upon the last page are some rules for purchasing land, which I suspect are to be attributed to the poet of Lincolnshire, rather than to Heresbach.  They are as good as they were then; and the poetry none the worse:—­