EARLY TUDOR GARDENS 91 



Garden-tools have but little changed since the earliest times. 

 The spade and rake now in use are much the same as those of 

 Tudor days. Tusser, in the following passage, enumerates the 

 tools then in use :^ 



" NoAv set doo aske watering with pot or with dish ; 

 new sownc doo not so, if yc doo as I wish, 

 Through cunning with diblc, rake, mattock and spade, 

 by line and by leuell, trim garden is made." 



The cost of these tools can be ascertained from various accounts. 

 The prices ranged from 4d. to is.- 



Probably many of the tools were home-made. Fitzherbert, 

 in 1534, in his Book of Httsbandry, devotes a paragraph to 

 showing " howe forkes and rakes shulde be made." He says 

 that they should be prepared in the winter, " when the hous- 

 bande sytteth by the fyre, and hath nothynge to do than may 

 he make theym redye, and tothe^ the rakes with dry wethy- 

 wode, and bore the holes with his wymble,^ bothe aboue and 

 vnder, and drive the tethe vpwarde faste and harde, and than 

 wedge them aboue with drye woode of oke. . . . They be 

 most comonly made of hasell and withee." Fitzherbert also 

 gives a list of the tools used for grafting : " A graffynge-sawe 



June 23rd. — " Joan Fery, working for three days, lod." 



August 19th. — " Paid to Agnes Stringer, working for two days with a 

 half, 7d." 



Several more entries of women gardeners follow these : " Paid for 

 bread and drink and herrings and other things (for) the gardeners, all 

 women, as appears by the book of expenses of the second term in the 

 seventh week, 2s. ifd." {Cardinal's College, Oxford). 



" 3 whemcn for wedyng, 6d." (Le Strange, Household Books). 



^ Five Hundred Pointes of Good Husbandrie. 



^ Hampton Court, IMarch, 1533. Item for three iron rakes serving 

 for the King's new garden at 6d. the piece — i8d. Item for a hachet 

 serving for the said garden, 6d. Item for three new knives to shred 

 the quicksets in the new garden at 3d. the piece, gd. Item for six 

 pieces of round line to measure and set forth the new garden, i2d. Item 

 for two cutting hooks, 2S. Item for two cutting knives, 4d. Item for 

 two rakes, i6d. Item for two chisels, 6d. Item for a graffing saw, 4d. 

 The price paid for a spade at Hunstanton, in Norfolk, on July 7th, 1538, 

 was 8d., and on December ist, in the same year, 5d., and " for a hatt- 

 chett, a rake and a parying yearne ( =paring-iron) for the garden, lod. 

 March nth, 1543 " (Le Strange, Household Books). 



^ =^ tooth. * =an auger. 



