dity in a
little room; whereas of late years a great compass hath yielded but small
profit, and this only through the idle and negligent occupation of such as
daily manured and had the same in occupying. I might set down examples of
these things out of all the parts of this island--that is to say, many of
England, more out of Scotland, but most of all out of Wales: in which two
last rehearsed, very other little food and livelihood was wont to be
looked for (beside flesh) more than the soil of itself and the cow gave,
the people in the meantime living idly, dissolutely, and by picking and
stealing one from another. All which vices are now (for the most part)
relinquished, so that each nation manureth her own with triple commodity
to that it was before time.

The pasture of this island is according to the nature and bounty of the
soil, whereby in most places it is plentiful, very fine, batable, and such
as either fatteth our cattle with speed or yieldeth great abundance of
milk and cream whereof the yellowest butter and finest cheese are made.
But where the blue clay aboundeth (which hardly drinketh up the winter's
water in long season) there the grass is speary, rough, and very apt for
bushes: by which occasion it becometh nothing so profitable unto the owner
as the other. The best pasture ground of all England is in Wales, and of
all the pasture in Wales that of Cardigan is the chief. I speak of the
same which is to be found in the mountains there, where the hundredth part
of the grass growing is not eaten, but suffered to rot on the ground,
whereby the soil becometh matted and divers bogs and quick-moors made
withal in long continuance: because all the cattle in the country are not
able to eat it down. If it be accounted good soil on which a man may lay a
wand over night and on the morrow find it hidden and overgrown with grass,
it is not hard to find plenty thereof in many places of this land.
Nevertheless such is the fruitfulness of the aforesaid county that it far
surmounteth this proportion, whereby it may be compared for batableness
with Italy, which in my time is called the paradise of the world, although
by reason of the wickedness of such as dwell therein it may be called the
sink and drain of hell: so that whereas they were wont to say of us that
our land is good but our people evil, they did but only speak it; whereas
we know by experience that the soil of Italy is a noble soil, but the
dwellers therein far of