44 AGRICULTURE IN THE 



Wheat and rye are sown about Michaelmas, generally under 

 the furrow, i.e. it is cast on the fallow and then ploughed 

 under. It is not good to sow it on peas-stubble and then 

 plough it in, but it should be sown on land which is fallowed 

 every fourth year. In Essex, he says, it is the custom to send 

 a child on the furrow before the horses and oxen, with a bag or 

 hopper full of corn, who casts the seed little by little into the 

 furrow, and he adds, naturally, * Me semeth, that chylde oughte 

 to have moche dyscretion.' The seed of wheat and rye is two 

 bushels to the acre. Wheat and rye may be blended, this being 

 the surest crop, and best for the husbandman's household. But 

 this mixed corn must contain wheat that ripens early. For 

 there are several kinds of wheat. Flaxen wheat is yellow and 

 without awns. Pollard wheat has no awns and is thick set in 

 the ear. White wheat has awns, and the ear is four-sided. Red 

 wheat is flat, broad and awned. English wheat has a dun ear, 

 with few awns, and is nearly the worst. Peck wheat is the worst. 

 It has a red ear, many awns, is thin set, and flintered, which is 

 explained to mean, it contains small wrinkled and dry corns. 

 It will not make white bread, as most of the others do, but will 

 grow on cold ground. 



I have extracted these details from Fitzherbert's work, be- 

 cause they will be found, when compared with what was stated 

 in the first volume, to prove what has been already stated, that 

 no material improvement or alteration was made in the art 

 of husbandry during the fifteenth and part of the sixteenth 

 century. We shall see below that though the evidence which 

 I have been able to collect as to implements and materials used 

 in husbandry is not so copious for the period before me as it 

 was for the earlier epoch, that these materials and implements 

 are not sensibly cheapened up to the time at least in which the 

 work which I have consulted, and have made use of for the 

 above extracts, was published. But there is a still more notable 

 fact. The English husbandman as yet knows nothing of winter 

 roots or artificial grasses, for Fitzherbert would hardly have 

 been silent on so important an element in the economy of the 



