34 HISTORY OF AGRICULTURE 



much butter as shall make as much cheese.'^ It was a common 

 practice all through the Middle Ages, and survives in some 

 localities to-day, to let out the cows by the year, at from ^y. to 

 6s. 8d. a head, often to the daya or dairymaid, the owner supply- 

 ing the food, and the lessee agreeing to restore them in equal 

 number and condition at the end of the term.^ The anony- 

 mous treatise tells us that ' if you wish to farm out your 

 stock you can take 4^. 6d. clear for each cow and acquit the 

 tithe, and for a sheep 6d. and the tithe, and a sow should 

 bring you 6s. 6d. a year and acquit the tithe, and each hen 9^. 

 and the tithe ; and Walter says, ' When I was bailiff the dairy- 

 maids had the geese and hens to farm, the geese at ild. and 

 the hens at 3^.' 



Among other information conveyed by these two treatises 

 we learn that the poor servants or labourers were accustomed 

 to be fed on the diseased sheep, salted and dried ; but Walter 

 adds^ ' I do not wish you to do this.' Nor can we point the 

 finger of scorn at this : for in the disastrous season of 1879 

 numbers of rotten sheep were sold to the butcher and con- 

 sumed by the unsuspecting public without even being salted 

 and dried. 



He further tells us that 'you can well have 3 acres weeded 

 for id.y and an acre of meadow mown for 4^., and an acre of waste 

 meadow for ^\d. And know that 5 men can well reap and 

 bind 2 acres a day of each kind of corn, and where each takes 

 id. a day then you must give ^d. an acre.' ^ ' One ought to 

 thresh a quarter of wheat or rye for 2d. and a quarter of oats 

 for id. A sow ought to farrow twice a year, having each 

 time at least 7 pigs ; and each goose 5 goslings a year, and each 



^ Walter of Henley, Royal Historical Society, p. TJ. 



^ Thorold Rogers, Agriculture and Prices, i. 397 ; Archaeologia, xviii. 

 281. 



' Walter of Henley, pp. 69, 75. In Lancashire, at the end of the thirteenth 

 century, mowing 60^ acres cost 17^. 7\d. Victoria County History y 

 Lancashire, Agriculture, and Two Compoti of the Lancashire and Cheshire 

 Manors of Henry de Lacy (Cheetham Society). 



