A Sixteenth- Centttry Farm. 319 



land, "Lest," as Tiisser puts it, " rie tarry wheat till it shed as 

 it stand." ^ If the soil was heavy the swing plough would 

 have been used, and if stony, the wheel plough. In either 

 -case the Dover court beetle - would be attached for breaking up 

 the clods after the plough. The yoke of two or four oxen 

 would probably draw the plough, or the horses might be 

 taken out of their plank floored stables and harnessed, with 

 the light cool sedge collars for the work. The superiority 

 •of either beast was still a contested point. Though it was 

 the practice in some parts of the country to sow the rye and 

 wheat upon the pea stubbles,^ it was deemed better husbandry 

 to cultivate such crops on the fallow land. As soon as the 

 limitation fixed by the custom of the manor court to the 

 pasturage of the lord's crops on the champion land allowed, the 

 husbandry of the winter crops commenced. The wheat was 

 •sown under the furrow, often by a mere child, who carried a 

 bag or hopper full of corn in front of the horses or oxen. The 

 rye was sown above the furrow and harrowed. Two London 

 bushels of wheat were sown to the acre, and about the 

 same quantity was necessary in the case of rye. "Flaxen 

 wheate, polerd wheate or whyte wheate, were the best varie- 

 ties to blend with rye." Other varieties used were red, 

 English, and peck wheat.'*' The next process was to frighten 

 the birds off, for which purpose a boy armed with a bow or a 

 girl with a sling were set on to cry out and otherwise get rid 

 •of these marauders. On damp ground the farmer next pro- 

 ceeded to cut a water furrow across the ridges on the lowest 

 part of the land, or, if its situation in the common field pre- 

 vented this, his only remedy was to dyke up a fence of soil 



^ Compare Tusser's witli, Fitzherbert's ideas, wliich are at variance 

 •on this head. My own experience is, that rye will wait any reasonable 

 time before it sheds. 



'^ It was called " Dover court " beetle, either because of the Rood of 

 Dover, which was very large and remarkable in Tusser's age, or because 

 ■of the Dover Court signifying all speakers and no hearers, in allusion to 

 the noise a great beetle is supposed to make. See Tusser's 1774 edition, 

 (September) Fivo. Hundred Poitits of Husbandry. 



^ See Fitzherbert, Husbandry. 



^ Fitzherbert, Husbandry. 



