From the multitude of books published on the subject of cultivating the earth, one would have imagined the art to have been more studied, than it really has been; since upon the whole it continued in. a sort of declining condition from the days of Virgil and Columella, till the time of Constantine IV. and then lay in a kind of dormant state till about the middle of Henry VIIIth's reign, when it was rather revived,, than improved.
Indeed, about that time, Judge Fitzherbert, in England (better known among us, as author of another/ excellent work, called ) , , , , , , &c. in Italy, published several considerable books in Agriculture; but our countryman was the first, if we except , (whose fine performance was printed at Florence in 1478) and the translator of , who made his work public in the year 1528.
Walter Harte