10 THE MANORIAL SYSTEM 



purpose the ploughman, holding the principal hale of the plough 

 in his left hand, carried in his right a " clotting beetle," or 

 " maul," such as that which is depicted in the Cotton MSS. 

 A " Dover-court beetle " was a necessary tool in the days of 

 Tusser ; and Plot, whose Natural History of Oxfordshire appeared 

 in the seventeenth century, recommends its use after the land was 

 harrowed. 



The amount of wheat, rye, beans, and peas usually sown to the 

 acre was only two bushels ; and of oats and, strangely enough, of 

 barley, four bushels. The yield of wheat rarely exceeded five- 

 fold, or ten bushels to the acre ; that of the leguminous crops 

 ranged from three- to six-fold, or from six to twelve bushels to the 

 acre ; that of oats and barley varied from three- to four-fold, or 

 from twelve to sixteen bushels to the acre. Considerable care was 

 exercised in the choice and change of the seed-corn, which was 

 often one of the produce-rents of the tenants. On the Berkeley 

 Estates (1321) the seed was changed every second or third year ; 

 the upland corn being sown in the vale, and vice versa. Wheat 

 rarely followed a spring grain crop. If it did, it may be supposed 

 that it received the greater part of the manure mixed with earth, 

 which the tenants carted from the demesne yard, and spread on 

 the manor farm. From the point of view of manuring the land, 

 the right of folding was a valuable privilege. Tenants, unless they 

 purchased a licence to fold their sheep on the land they occupied, 

 were often obliged to feed and fold their flocks on the lord's land 

 for fallow or in his own fold. Sometimes the herbage of the lord's 

 land for fallow was sold to a sheep-master to be depastured on the 

 land. Lime was used on heavy clays, or to destroy moss. The 

 value of marl in improving the texture of sandy soils and some 

 kinds of clays was appreciated. On the Berkeley Estates it was 

 first used in the fortieth year of Henry III. But the cost was 

 excessive. " Marl," says Fitzherbert, 1 " is an excellent manure, 

 and . . . exceeding chargeable." Sea sand was used near the coast ; 

 soot and even street refuse were employed on home farms. Drain- 

 age, except in the form of ridging the surface of wet soils, was 

 rarely practised. Sometimes, as Palladius recommends (Book VI. 

 st. 6), shallow trenches filled with gravel, stones, or hollow alder 

 stems, and turfed over, were cut, and, on the manors belonging to 



1 Fitzherbert's Book of Husbandry, book i. c. 20 (ed. 1698). For agri- 

 cultural literature, see Chronological List in Appendix I. 



