WALTER OF HENLEY 29 



HOW YOU OUGHT TO SORT OUT YOUR SWINE. 



Sort out your swine once a year, and if you find any 

 which is not sound take it away. Do not have boars 

 and sows unless of a good breed. Your other female swine 

 cause to be kept, that they do not farrow ; then shall their 

 bacon be worth as much as that of the males. And let 

 them be able to dig. They have need of help in three 

 months, in February, March, and April. Three times a 

 year ought your sows to farrow, unless it be for bad keeping. 

 It is a good thing for swine to lie long in the morning, and 

 to lie dry. Let your sucking pigs be well kept, and they 

 will grow the better. 



HOW YOU OUGHT TO SORT OUT SHEEP. 



See that your shepherd be not hasty, for by an angry 

 man some may be badly overdriven, from which they may 

 perish there where your sheep are pasturing and the shep- 

 herd comes among them. Sort out your sheep once a year, 

 between Easter and Whitsuntide, and cause those which 

 are not to be kept to be sheared early and marked apart 

 from the others, and put them in enclosed wood or in other 

 pasture where they can fatten, and about St. John's Day 

 sell them, for then will the flesh of sheep be in season. And 

 the wool of these may be sold by itself with the skins 

 [of those] which died of murrain. And when the sheep 

 are sold, for them and their wool and the skins aforesaid 

 replace as many head. Some men replace others for those 

 which died of murrain. How ? I will tell you. If a sheep 

 die suddenly they put the flesh in water for as many 

 hours as are between midday and three o'clock, and then 

 hang it up, and when the water is drained off they salt 

 it and then dry it. And if any sheep begin to fall ill they 

 see if it be because the teeth drop, and if the teeth do not 



