EARLY rUDOR GARDENS. ]0o 



all the money for the payment of labourers passed through 

 the head-g-ardener's hands. The labourers received 6d., 4d., 

 or 3d. a day, or even 2d. a day if they were given food. 

 The weeding was usually done by women, and 3d. or 2d. a 

 day was the ordinary wage.* 



Garden tools have not changed much since the earliest 

 times. The spade and rake we now use are much the same 

 as those of Tudor days. Tusser, in the following passage, 

 enumerates the tools then in use t : — 



" Now set doo aske watering- with pot or with dish 

 new sowne doo not so, if ye doo as I wish 

 Through cunning with dible, rake, mattock and spade 

 by line and by leuell, trim garden is made." 



We know the cost of these tools from various accounts. The 

 prices ranged from 4d. to is.X 



Probably many of the tools were home-made. Fitzherbert, 



* 1530.— "5 labourers and 15 women weeders in the garden and the 

 orchard;" again, "20 women weeders, 2 labourers, and 2 mowers" — a list 

 of the names of the weeders follows, and the men received 4d. per day, the 

 women 3d. — Ha)>ipfo)i Court Accounts. 



April 23rd (1530).—" Paid to two women rooting up unprofitable herbs 

 (extirpantibus herbas inutiles) in the garden for three days, i6d." 



June 6th. — " Paid to Margaret Hall, cleansing the garden, 3d." 



June 23rd. — "Joan Fery, working for three days, lod." 



August 19th. — "Paid to Agnes Stringer, working for two days with a 

 half, 7d." 



Several more entries of women gardeners follow these : " Paid for 

 bread and drink and herrings and other things (for) the gardeners, all 

 women, as appears by the book of expenses of the second term in the 

 seventh week, 2s. i^d." — CardinaVs College, Oxford. 



"3 whemen for wedyng, 6d." — Le Strange, Household Books. 



f Five Hundred Pointes of Good Husbnndrie. 



X Hampton Court, March, 1533. Item for three iron rakes serving for the 

 King's new garden at 6d. the piece — i8d. Item for a hatchet serving for the 

 said garden, 6d. Item for three new knives to shred the quicksets in the new 

 garden at 3d. the piece, gd. Item for six pieces of round line to measure and 

 set forth the new garden, I2d. Item for two cutting hooks, 2s. Item for two 

 cutting knives, 4d. Item for two rakes, i6d. Item for two chisels, 6d. Item 

 for a graffing saw, 4d. The price paid for a spade at Hunstanton, in Norfolk, 

 on July 7th, 1538, Avas 8d., and on December ist, in the same year, 5d. and 

 " for a hattchett, a rake and a parying yearne (=parii!g-iroii) for the garden, 

 lod. March nth, 1543." — Le Strange, Household Books. 



