here in any quarter of like quantity in the world. Howbeit this I
must need confess, that the sand and clay do bear great sway: but clay
most of all, as hath been and yet is always seen and felt through plenty
and dearth of corn. For if this latter (I mean the clay) do yield her full
increase (which it doth commonly in dry years for wheat), then is there
general plenty: whereas if it fail, then have we scarcity, according to
the old rude verse set down of England, but to be understood of the whole
island, as experience doth confirm--

"_When the sand doth serve the clay,
Then may we sing well-away;
But when the clay doth serve the sand,
Then is it merry with England._"

I might here intreat of the famous valleys in England, of which one is
called the Vale of White Horse, another of Evesham (commonly taken for the
granary of Worcestershire), the third of Aylesbury, that goeth by Thame,
the roots of Chiltern Hills, to Dunstable, Newport Pagnel, Stony
Stratford, Buckingham, Birstane Park, etc. Likewise of the fourth, of
Whitehart or Blackmoor in Dorsetshire. The fifth, of Ringdale or Renidale,
corruptly called Kingtaile, that lieth (as mine author saith) upon the
edge of Essex and Cambridgeshire, and also the Marshwood Vale: but,
forsomuch as I know not well their several limits, I give over to go any
further in their description. In like sort it should not be amiss to speak
of our fens, although our country be not so full of this kind of soil as
the parts beyond the seas (to wit, Narbonne, etc.), and thereto of other
pleasant bottoms, the which are not only endued with excellent rivers and
great store of corn and fine fodder for neat and horses in time of the
year (whereby they are exceeding beneficial unto their owners), but also
of no small compass and quantity in ground. For some of our fens are well
known to be either of ten, twelve, sixteen, twenty, or thirty miles in
length, that of the Girwies yet passing all the rest, which is full sixty
(as I have often read). Wherein also Ely, the famous isle, standeth, which
is seven miles every way, and whereunto there is no access but by three
causies, whose inhabitants in like sort by an old privilege may take wood,
sedge turf, etc., to burn, likewise hay for their cattle and thatch for
their houses of custom, and each occupier in his appointed quantity
throughout the isle; albeit that covetousness hath now begun somewhat to
abridge this large benevole