92 THE REIGN OF ELIZABETH 



the same heavy, cumbrous instruments, though several varieties 

 are mentioned as adapted to the different soils of the country. But 

 Fitzherbert was familiar with the same device for regulating the 

 depth and breadth of furrows, which was one of the most notable 

 improvements in the eighteenth century ploughs. Oxen were still 

 preferred to horses for ploughing purposes by both Fitzherbert and 

 Tusser. Iron was more used in the construction of ploughs ; both 

 share and coulter were more generally of iron, and the latter was 

 well steeled. Iron also entered more largely into the building of 

 waggons. Instead of the broad wheels made entirely of wood, 

 Fitzherbert recommends narrower wheels, bound with iron, as more 

 lasting and lighter in the draught. So long as artificial grasses 

 and roots were unknown, the farmer's year necessarily remained 

 the same its calendar of seasonable operations regulated by the 

 recurrence of saints' days and festivals, and controlled by a belief 

 in planetary influences as unscientific as that of Old Moore or Zadkiel. 

 Since the Middle Ages, the only addition to agricultural resources 

 had been hops, introduced into the eastern counties from Flanders 

 at the end of the fifteenth century. The date 1524, which is usually 

 given for their introduction, is too late ; so also is the rhyme, of 

 which there are several variations : 



" Hops, reformation, bays, and beer, 

 Came into England all in one year." 



Hops were apparently unknown in 1523 to Fitzherbert in Derby- 

 shire ; but in 1552 they were sufficiently important to be made the 

 subject of special legislation by Edward VI. In Tusser's day they 

 were extensively cultivated in Suffolk. On enclosed land their 

 cultivation rapidly increased. Harrison (1577) questions whether 

 any better are to be found than those grown in England. 

 Reginald Scot, himself a man of Kent, published his Perfite 

 Platforme of a Hoppe Garden in 1574, with minute instructions 

 for the growing, picking, drying and packing of hops. The 

 book was reprinted in 1575, and again in 1576. It was still the 

 standard work in 1651. In Hartlib's Legacie it is called " an 

 excellent Treatise, to the which little or nothing hath been added, 

 though the best part of an hundred years are since past." 



Fitzherbert starts his Book of Husbandry with the month of 

 January. But Tusser begins his farmer's year at Michaelmas as 

 the usual date of entry. Both writers note that an open-field farmer 

 entered by custom on his fallows on the preceding Lady-Day, in 



