i6 AGRICULTURAL W RULERS. 



of another manner and also other maner of plowe yrons, the which we seemeth 

 generally good and likely to serve in many places, and especially if the plough beam 

 and sharbeam were four ynches longer, between the,steth and the plowe tayle, that the 

 shelbrede might come more aslope, for those plowes s^yve out too sodenly, and there- 

 fore they are worse to draw, and for no cause els. In Lecestershyre, Lankeshyre, 

 Yorkeshyre, Lincolne, Norfolke, Cambridgeshyre, and many other countries the 

 plowes be of dyvers makinges. But how so ever they be made, if they be well 

 tempored and go well, they may be the betier suffered. 



The use of these is to show us in the first place that so long ago as 

 almost 400 years, different forms of ploughs were in use in England. 

 He also recommends the wheels of carts and waggons to be shod with 

 iron, which in his day would cost about 255. the pair. He prefers oxen 

 to horses for rural labour, but admits that horses are quicker for certain 

 light work. He recommends that young husbandmen should learn to 

 make their yokes, ox bows, stools, and all manner of plough gears. He 

 advises that the wives of farmers perform all manner of work in baking 

 and brewing, winnowing corn, driving and filling the dung carts, and 

 attending the grinding mills when the flour is made. 



He next discusses the difference between ploughing with oxen and 

 with horses, and adds : — 



In Somersetshyre, Devonshyre, and other partes of the west, the farmers make 

 great advantage of their worn oxen when they have done labour, by feeding them in 

 fresh pastures they bring them to be good meat, and sell them well in the markets. 

 The chief objection made against the flesh of these cattle is that it is of large grain 

 and does not eat so short and tender as that of cattle which have not been used to 

 draw. 



As to sowing he says : — 



An acre of ground by the statute, that is to say, xvi. fote and an halfe to the perche 

 or pole, four perches to an acre in breadth, and fortye perches to an acre in lengthe, 

 may be metelye well sowen with two London bushelles of pease, the whyche is but two 

 stryckes in other places, and if it be all beanes it will have foure London bushelles 

 fullye, and that is half a quarter. 



Is not this very similar to what the farmer does to-day ? As to 

 barley he states : — 



That there be three maner of barleys, that is to say, sprot barley, lonjre eare, and 

 here barley, that somme men call bigge. Sprot barley hath a flat eare, three-quarters 

 of an inch brode, and three inches long. Long eare is halfe an inch brode, and foure 

 inches and more of lengtii. 



Here, then, it is clearly shown that the modern type of flat-eared 

 barley known as Goldthorpe, and the long-eared type which we call 

 Chevalier, was in some form or other known to Fitzherbert ; indeed, his 

 measurements would represent an average ear to-day. Of oats, he speaks 

 of red, yellow, black, and rough, the red being best for oatmeal. It may 

 be presumed these latter are what we call sandy oats. Hay was made 

 of the native grasses, stacked into ricks, and cut into trusses. 



" In the fourteenth century," says Professor Rogers in his exhaustive 

 work on the " History of Agriculture," Vol. I., " Eighteen acres of grass 

 ■ on the Oxford meadows sold at ^s. To mow and stack would cost 



