as now inhabit
the same, is very fruitful, and such indeed as bringeth forth many
commodities, whereof other countries have need, and yet itself (if
fond niceness were abolished) needless of those that are daily
brought from other places. Nevertheless it is more inclined to
feeding and grazing than profitable for tillage and bearing of corn,
by reason whereof the country is wonderfully replenished with neat
and all kind of cattle; and such store is there also of the same in
every place that the fourth part of the land is scarcely manured for
the provision and maintenance of grain. Certes this fruitfulness was
not unknown unto the Britons long before Caesar's time, which was the
cause wherefore our predecessors living in those days in manner
neglected tillage and lived by feeding and grazing only. The graziers
themselves also then dwelled in movable villages by companies, whose
custom was to divide the ground amongst them, and each one not to
depart from the place where his lot lay (a thing much like the Irish
Criacht) till, by eating up of the country about him, he was enforced
to remove further and seek for better pasture. And this was the
British custom, as I learn, at first. It hath been commonly reported
that the ground of Wales is neither so fruitful as that of England,
neither the soil of Scotland so bountiful as that of Wales, which is
true for corn and for the most part; otherwise there is so good
ground in some parts of Wales as is in England, albeit the best of
Scotland be scarcely comparable to the mean of either of both.
Howbeit, as the bounty of the Scotch doth fail in some respect, so
doth it surmount in other, God and nature having not appointed all
countries to yield forth like commodities.

But where our ground is not so good as we would wish, we have--if
need be--sufficient help to cherish our ground withal, and to make it
more fruitful. For, beside the compest that is carried out of the
husbandmen's yards, ditches, ponds, dung-houses, or cities and great
towns, we have with us a kind of white marl which is of so great
force that if it be cast over a piece of land but once in threescore
years it shall not need of any further compesting. Hereof also doth
Pliny speak (lib. 17, cap. 6, 7, 8), where he affirmeth that our marl
endureth upon the earth by the space of fourscore years: insomuch
that it is laid upon the same but once in a man's life, whereby the
owner shall not need to travel twice in procuri