Life and Work on the Ba7'ony 



205 



a total annual cost per annum, without reckoning fodder or 

 chaff, of 12.S. hd. The ox whilst stall feeding consumed one 

 pennyworth or three and a half sheaves of oats weekly, ten of 

 which yielded a bushel of grain, and twelve pennyworth of 

 grass in summer, which, without fodder or chaff, would make a 

 total annual cost of 3.9. \d. ; and further, argued Walter of 

 Henley, when both beasts are worn out, there is the value of 

 the horse's skin versus the meat on the ox's carcase. Now such 

 cogent reasoning as this induces the reader to pause and 

 consider if the Sussex people are so very behind the times 

 in clinging to plough oxen while the champions of modern 

 scientific husbandry are improving the breed of their gigantic 

 shire horses. 



Clay and stony soils were sown early, before the dry March 

 winds hardened or desiccated the seed bed. Chalky and sandy 

 lands were left to the last, and marshy ground was well ridged 

 up, though we are not justified in concluding from this that 

 there was any process similar to that of raftering by means of 

 the modern double-breast plough. 



Sometimes wheat succeeded another crop such as barley, 

 but not usually.^ The costs and profits of the crop per acre, 

 according to Walter of Henley, were as follows : - 



Three plougliings, at 6( 



Two bushels seed 



Harrowing . 



Weeding 



Reaping 



Carrying 



£0 3 U 



' "Walter of Henley implies the succession of a spring crop to the 

 " warectatio," and therefore wlieat to a spring crop, when he speaks of 

 the thi-ee ploughings as taking place respectively in April, after St. John's 

 Day, and at seedtime when the earth is firm. Comp. Walter de Henle, 

 Eoyal Hist. Soc, 1890, p. 13, and Sogers, Six Centuries of Work and 

 Wages, p. 443. 



^ Professor Rogers is probably correct in surmising that sowing was 

 alwaj's performed by the bailiff, and therefore never counted in the cost. 

 Prices and Agriculture, vol. i., p. 16. There was no rolling, and weeding 

 was performed in June with the mattock or hoe. 



