In his chapter “Of Parks and Warrens,” Harrison tells us how coney warrens have increast, from the value of the creatures’ black skins and the quick sale for young rabbits in London; and what a shocking thing it is that one Lady has sold her husband’s venison to the Cooks, and another Lady has ridden to market to see her butter sold! it’s as bad as an Earl feeling his own oxen to see whether they’re ready for the butcher! He then gives us a refreshing bit of his mind on owners of parks who enclose commons:
“And yet some owners, still desirous to inlarge those grounds, as either for the breed and feeding of cattell, doo not let dailie to take in more, not sparing the verie commons whervpon manie towneships now and then doo liue, affirming that we haue alreadie too great store of people in England; and that youth by marrieng too soone doo nothing profit the countrie, but fill it full of beggars, to the hurt and vtter vndooing (they saie) of the common wealth.
“Certes, if it be not one curse of the Lord, to haue our countrie conuerted in such sort, from the furniture of mankind, into the walks and shrowds of wild beasts, I know not what is anie. How manie families also these great and small games (for so most keepers call them) haue eaten vp, and are likelie hereafter to deuoure, some men may coniecture, but manie more lament, sith there is no hope of restraint to be looked for in this behalfe, because the corruption is so generall.”
The chapter “Of Gardens and Orchards” is interesting, not only as containing the bit quoted above on Harrison’s own garden, but for its note of how vegetables, roots, and salad herbs, that had gone out of use since Henry IV.’s time, had in Henry VIII.’s and Elizabeth’s days come into daily consumption, so that men even eat dangerous fruits like mushrooms. Also, hops and madder were grown again, and rare medicinable herbs. Gardens were beautified, plants imported; orchards supplied with apricot, almond, peach, fig, and cornel trees; nay, capers, oranges, lemons, and wild olives. Grafting was practist with great skill and success; even dishwater was utilis’d for plants. And as to roses, there was one in Antwerp in 1585 that had 180 leaves on one button or flower, and Harrison could have had a slip of it for £10 (£60 now?) if he hadn’t thought it “but a tickle hazard.”
The chapter “Of Woods and Marshes” is interesting, from Harrison’s laments in it over the destruction of English woods, which he saw yearly disappearing around him,[49] one man, as he says, having turnd sixty woods into one pair of breeches.[50] And then, mov’d by the thought of what will become of England without its oaks, the unselfish old parson utters the four dearest wishes of his heart:—
“I would wish that I might liue no longer than to see foure things in this land reformed, that is: (1) the want of discipline in the church: (2) the couetous dealing of most of our merchants in the preferment of the commodities of other countries, and hinderance of their owne: (3) the holding of faires and markets vpon the sundaie to be abolished, and referred to the wednesdaies: (4) and that euerie man, in whatsoeuer part of the champaine soile enioieth fortie acres of land and vpwards, after that rate, either by free deed, copie hold, or fee farme, might plant one acre of wood, or sowe the same with oke mast, hasell, beech, and sufficient prouision be made that it may be cherished and kept. But I feare me that I should then liue too long, and so long, that I should either be wearie of the world, or the world of me; and yet they are not such things but they may easilie be brought to passe.”
This same chapter contains the capital bit about the oaken men and willow houses and their smoke-dried inhabiters, quoted above; and a strong protest against rascally tanners and wood-fellers who, for private gain, evade the laws; also some good advice about draining.
In his chapter on “Baths and Hot Wells,” Harrison says that he’s tasted the water of King’s Newnham well, near Coventry, and that it had “a tast much like to allume liquor, and yet nothing vnplesant nor vnsauorie in the drinking.” From his description of Bath it is clear that he had been there, unless he quotes an eye-witness’s words as his own. His chapter, “Of Antiquities found,” tells us of his own collection of Roman coins which he intended to get engrav’d in his Chronologie, though, he says, the cost of engraving,
“as it hath doone hitherto, so the charges to be emploied vpon these brasen or copper images will hereafter put by the impression of that treatise: whereby it maie come to passe, that long trauell shall soone proue to be spent in vaine, and much cost come to verie small successe.”