The great bell at Westminster, in the Clockiar at the New Palace Yard,
36,OOOlib. weight. See Stow's Survey of London, de hoc. It was given
by Jo. Montacute, Earle of (Salisbury, I think). Part of the
inscription is thus, sc. "...... annis ab acuto monte Johannis."
PART II.-CHAPTER VII.
AGRICULTURE.
[THE late Mr. Thos. Davis, of Longleat, Steward to the Marquess of
Bath, drew up an admirable "View of the Agriculture of the County of
Wilts", which was printed by the Board of Agriculture in 1794. 8vo.
-J. B.]
CONSIDERING the distance of place where I now write, London, and the
distance of time that I lived in this county, I am not able to give a
satisfactorie account of the husbandry thereof. I will only say of our
husbandmen, as Sir Thom. Overbury does of the Oxford scholars, that
they goe after the fashion; that is, when the fashion is almost out
they take it up: so our countrey-men are very late and very unwilling
to learne or be brought to new improvements.
[It was scarcely a reproach to the Wiltshire husbandmen to be far
behind those of more enlightened counties, when, in the seat of
learning, where the mental faculties of the students ought to have
been continually exercised and cultivated, and not merely occupied in
learning useless Greek and Latin, the "Oxford scholars" followed,
rather than led, the fashion. Agricultural societies were then
unknown, farmers had little communication with distant districts, and
consequently knew nothing of the practice of other places; rents were
low, and the same families continued in the farms from generation to
generation, pursuing the same routine of Agriculture which their
fathers and grandfathers had pursued "time out of mind".
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