A DISCOURSE

30 $

2 .

More plenty of mutton and beef,

Corn, butter, and cheese of the best,More wealth any where (to be brief)

More people, more handsome, and prest,Where find ye (go search any coast)

Than there where inclosure is most ?.

3 .

More work for the labouring man,

As well in the town as the field;

Or therefore (devize, if ye can can)More profit what countries do yield?

More seldom where see ye the poorGo begging from door to door?

4 .

In wood-land the poor men that haveScarce fully two acres of land,

More merrily live, and do save

Than t’other with twenty in hand:

Yet pay they as much for the twoAs t’other for twenty must do.

If this same be true, as it is,

Why gather they nothing by this ?

Thus honest Tufser, above an hundred years since, and the whole agerhas justified it; since it is evident, that by inclosure, and this diligentculture, the very worst land of England would yield tenfold more profitthan that which is here celebrated for the best and richest spot of it.

Such as are ready to tell you their lands are so wet that their woods donot thrive in them, let them be converted to pasture, or bestow the sameindustry on them which good husbands do in meadows by draining;which instead of those narrow rills (gutters rather) might be reduced toa proportionable canal, cut even and straight, the earth taken out andspread upon the weeping and uliginous places; nor would the charge beso much as that of the yearly and perpetual renewing and cleansingof those numerous and irregular sluices; besides, there is a • profitin storing the canal with fish.

It is a slothfulnefs to do otherwise, since it might be effected in fewyears, by continually, and by degrees making the middle cut large, where