Kent was then, as now, the great fruit county of England; 'above all others I think the Kentishmen be most apt and industrious in planting orchards with pippins and cherries, especially near the Thames about Feversham and Sittingbourne.' But Devon and Hereford were also famous; Westcote about 1630 says the Devonshire men had of late much enlarged their orchards, and 'are very curious in planting and grafting all kinds of fruit'[289]; and John Beale in 1656 tells us Hereford 'is reputed the orchard of England'[290]; while Hartlib says there were many orchards in Worcestershire and Gloucestershire.[291] He calls 'Tandeane' near Taunton the Paradise of England, where the husbandry was excellent, the land fruitful by nature and improved by the art and industry of the farmers; 'they take extraordinary pains in soyling, ploughing, and dressing their lands, and after the plow there goeth some three or four with mattocks to break the clods and to draw up the earth out of the furrows that the lands may lye round, and that the water annoy not the seed (the water evidently often lying long in the furrows between the great high ridges), and to that end they most carefully cut gutters and trenches in all places. And for the better enriching of their ploughing lands they cut up, cast, and carry in the unplowed headlands and places of no use. Their hearts, hands, eyes, and all their powers concurre in one to force the earth to yield her utmost fruit; and the crops of wheat that rewarded this industry were sometimes 8 and 10 quarters to an acre. A short pamphlet called the _Fruiterer's Secrets_, published in London in 1604, imparts some interesting and curious information about fruit growing.[292] There were then four sorts of cherries in England, Flemish,[293] English, Gascoyne, and black, and the preserving of them from birds, always a burden on the grower, the author says can be done by a gun or a sling; the worst enemies being jays and bullfinches, who ate stones and all. Stone fruit should be gathered in dry weather, and after the dew is off, for if gathered wet it loses colour and becomes mildewed. If nettles newly gathered are laid at the bottom of the basket and on the top of the fruit, they will hasten the ripening of fruit picked unripe, and make it keep its colour.