"Walter Harte, Dictionary of National Biography, 1885-1900, Volume 25"

“Harte was excessively vain. He put copies of his book in manuscript into the hands of lord Chesterfield and lord Granville, that they might revise it. Now how absurd was it to suppose that two such noblemen would revise so big a manuscript. Poor man! He left London the day of the publication of his book, that he might be out of the way of the great praise he was to receive; and he was ashamed to return, when he found how ill his book had succeeded. It was unlucky in coming out on the same day with Robertson's History of Scotland. His husbandry, however, is good.”

“Rome was ruined more by neglect of agriculture, and giving no attention to useful trade and commerce, than by the invasion of barbarians.”

“Samuel Hartlib, a celebrated writer on husbandry in the last century, a gentleman much beloved and esteemed by Milton, in his preface to the work, commonly called his Legacy, laments greatly that no public director of husbandry was established in England By Authority; and that we had not adopted the Flemish custom of letting farms upon improvement... Cromwell, in consequence of this admirable performance, allowed Hartlib a pension of 100l. a year ; and Hartlib afterwards, the better to fulfil the intentions of his benefactor, procured Dr. Beati's excellent annotations on the Legacy, with other valuable pieces from bis numerous correspondents.”

“Industry is the vis motrix of husbandry, and therefore an ancient English writer observes, "that a single uncultivated acre is a real physical evil in any state.”

“He was fitter for that than for heroick history: he did well when he turned his sword into a ploughshare.”