322 History of the English Landed Interest. 



tires. The horses who were wont to draw these carts, hoth 

 leaders and thillers,^ must have had a lazy existence all this 

 time, and seldom left their warm stables. All the feeble or 

 old cattle, and especially the milch cows, were now housed. 

 They were fed chiefly on hay and straw ; the rye straw, as 

 being the poorest, was used first. The horses were fed prin- 

 cipally on hay and chaff, and sparingly on peas haulm and 

 dried vetches. 



Save for the occasional visit of the chapman, who seems to 

 have both bought farm produce and sold trifling necessaries, 

 the farmer and his belongings were almost completely isolated 

 from the outside world during the depths of this season. Not 

 long after Christmas he was in a state of siege, and had to 

 put all living on short rations, to stave off the attacks of famine 

 and disease. If times were bad he would seldom allow the 

 luxury of a roast joint, but lived principally on broth.- He 

 took care that there was no waste of fuel at the servants' fire ; 

 and began to replenish his supplies by the fallage of timber. 

 In snowy weather the smaller branches were thrown to the 

 cattle in the open, for both they and the rabbits were sup- 

 posed to do well on this species of food, which received the 

 name of " Browse." B}^ the end of the month the foddpr 

 supply would be often alarmingly short, and farmers would 

 search the hedge greens ^ and open spaces of the woodlands for 

 prime grass. To correct the humours occasioned whenever 

 his cows overfed themselves on this unusual dainty, the farmer 

 would resort to his store of verjuice, and dose the suffering 

 animals with this medicine. A little later there would be 

 some early calves and lambs, which it was good policy to 

 butcher as early as possible, since by so doing their fresh meat 

 as well as their mother's milk might stave off the symptoms 

 of scurvy and other scorbutic eruptions, which generally put 



' The wheeler was called thiller. 



^ It is probable that in some districts the labourer was entitled to a 

 certain quantity of roast meat per week. See remarks at the end of this 

 chapter. 



' In every arable close there would be a headland a rod wide, left for 

 pasture. 



