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62
Samuel Hartlib (ed.)
A Discoverie for Division or Setting Out of Land
London, 1653
4º: A3 B–E4 F1
147×93mm
Vet. A3 e. 1252
  










Cressy Dymock’s plan for the division of a fenland plot. The scheme aimed to rationalize the arrangement of land under cultivation. From catalogue no.62.

full size (60 K)


In 1653, Hartlib published a letter from Cressy Dymock, an inventor and Nottinghamshire farmer, which reported on farming arrangements in the newly-drained Axholme fen. Dymock suggested several schemes for organizing farms on fenland in order to minimize transport costs, and to maximize the area under effective cultivation.
Two of these were illustrated, in cuts based on Dymock’s own drawings. The first, which is shown above, described the efficient division of a plot of 2,000 acres into 32 farms; the second explained the concentric division of a circular plot of 300 acres. Dymock shared Hartlib’s concern for the improvement of agriculture, and was one of the proponents of a College of good husbandry, as well as of new techniques of sowing and manuring. He claimed to have perfected Plattes’ engine for setting corn, and carried out a series of experiments on the relative yields produced by different methods of farming.


Richard Grove, ‘Cressey Dymock and the Draining of the Fens: An Early Agricultural Model’, Geographical Journal, vol.147(1981), pp.27–37; Hartlib Papers, 62/29/1A–4B.



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