HUSBANDRY 69 



HOW ONE MUST PAY LABOUBEBS IN AUGUST AND IN TIME OF 

 HAYMAKING. 



You can well have three acres weeded for a penny, and 

 an acre of meadow mown for fourpence, and an acre of 

 waste meadow for threepence-halfpenny, and an acre of 

 meadow turned and raised for a penny-halfpenny, and an 

 acre of waste for a penny-farthing. And know that five 

 men can well reap and bind two acres a day of each kind of 

 corn, more or less. And where each takes twopence a day 

 then you must give fivepence an acre, and when four take a 

 penny-halfpenny a day and the fifth twopence, because he 

 is binder, then you must give fourpence for the acre. And, 

 because in many places they do not reap by the acre, one 

 can know by the reapers and by the work done what they 

 do, but keep the reapers by the band, that is to say, that 

 five men or women, whichever you will, who are called half 

 men, make a band, and twenty-five men make five bands, 

 and twenty-five men can reap and bind ten acres a day 

 working all day, and in ten days a hundred acres, and in 

 twenty days two hundred acres by five score. And see then 

 how many acres there are to reap throughout, and see if 

 they agree with the days and pay them then, and if they 

 account for more days than is right according to this 

 reckoning, do not let them be paid, for it is their fault that 

 they have not reaped the amount and have not worked so 

 well as they ought. 



HOW THE LAND OUGHT TO BE MEASUBED. 



Because acres are not all of one measure, for in some 

 countries they measure by the perch of eighteen feet, and 

 in some by the perch of twenty feet, and in some by the 

 perch of twenty-two feet, and in some by the perch of 

 twenty-four feet, know that the acre which is measured by 

 the perch of eighteen feet makes an acre and a rood, and 

 the sixteenth of a rood, of the perch of sixteen feet, and 

 four acres make five acres and a quarter of a rood, and 



