grape, the pescod plumbe, and the Emperiale plumbe; against the west, the grafted cherries and the olive tree; and against the south side the almond and the figge tree.' As if this extraordinary mixture were not enough, 'round about the skirts of the alleys' were to be planted plums, damsons, cherries, filberts and nuts of all sorts, and the 'horse clog' and 'bulleye', the two latter being inferior wild plums. Plums were to be 5 feet apart, apples and other large fruit 12 feet. Young trees should be watered morning and evening in dry summers, and old ones should have the earth dug away from the upper part of the roots from November to March, then the earth, mixed with dung or soap ashes, replaced. Moss was carefully to be scraped off the trees with the back of an old knife, and, to prevent it, the trees manured with swine's dung. Minute distinctions are given as to pruning and washing the trees with strong brine of water and salt, either with a garden pump placed in a tub or with 'squirtes which have many hoales', the forerunner of modern spraying. Cider was then mostly made in the west, as in Devonshire and Cornwall, and perry in Worcestershire and Gloucestershire; but he leaves out Herefordshire, where it was certainly made at this time.[310] A curious help to fattening beasts, says Markham, is a lean horse or two kept with them, for the beasts delight to feed with them. Fattening cattle were to have first bite at the pastures, then draught cattle, and then sheep; after Midsummer, when there is an extraordinary sweetness in the grass, suffer the cattle to eat the grass closer till Lammas (August 1). Though some do not hold with him, he thinks reading and writing not unprofitable to a husbandman, but not much material 'to his bailiff'; for there is more trust in an honest score chalked on a trencher than 'in a commen writen scrowle'. Landowners derived a good income from their woods and coppices. An acre of underwood of twenty-one years' growth, was at this time worth from L20 to L30; of twelve years' growth, L5 to L6; but on many of the best lands it was only cut every thirty years.[311] In 1742-3 oak timber was worth from 15d. to 18d. per cubic foot and ash about 10d. During the Napoleonic war oak sold for 4s. 6d. a foot. In Blyth's _Improver Improved_ we have one of the first accounts of covered drains. The draining trench was to be made deep enough to go the bottom of the 'cold spewing moist water' that feeds the flags and the rushes; as for the width 'use thine own liberty' but be sure make it as straight as possible. The bottom was to be filled in with faggots or stones to a depth of 15 inches, a method in some parts retained till comparatively modern times, with the top turf laid upon them grass downward, and the drain filled in with the earth dug out of it.