Samuel Hartlib - Economics, Agriculture, Politics

Economics, Agriculture, Politics

The utopian tract Description of the Famous Kingdome of Macaria appeared under Hartlib's name. It is now considered that it was written by Gabriel Plattes (1600–1655), a friend. A practical project was the establishment of a workhouse, as part of the Corporation of the Poor of London. This initiative is reckoned a major influence on the later philanthropic schemes of John Bellers.

In 1641, Hartlib wrote Relation of that which hath been lately attempted to procure Ecclesiastical Peace among Protestants. After Comenius left England, and in particular from 1646 onwards, the Hartlib group agitated for religious reform and toleration, against the Presbyterian dominance in the Long Parliament. They also proposed economic, technical and agricultural improvements, particularly through Sir Cheney Culpeper, and Henry Robinson. Benjamin Worsley, Secretary to the Council of Trade from 1650, was a Hartlibian.

Hartlib valued useful knowledge: anything that could increase crop yields, or cure disease. One of Hartlib's great interests was agriculture. He worked to spread Dutch farming practices in England, such as using nitrogenous crops like cabbage to replenish the soil with nitrogen, to increase the yield of next season's crop. In 1652 he issued a second edition of Richard Weston's Discourse of Flanders Husbandry (1645). Hartlib corresponded with many landowners, as well as academics, in his quest for knowledge.

From 1650 Hartlib was very interested in, and influential on, fruit husbandry. A letter by Sir Richard Child, surveying the area, received publication in one of his books Samuel Hartlib, his Legacy, or an Enlargement of the Discourse of Husbandry used in Brabant and Flanders; and Hartlib introduced John Beale, another author on orchards, to John Evelyn who would eventually write an important work in the area, Sylva of 1664. In 1655 Hartlib wrote The Reformed Commonwealth of Bees, featuring a transparent glass beehive, to a design by Christopher Wren. John Evelyn showed him the manuscript of his Elysium Britannicum, at the end of the 1650s.