84 HISTORY OF AGRICULTURE 



faster than oxen on even ground and light ground, and are 

 ' quicke for carriages, but they be far more costly to keep in 

 winter.* 



According to him, oxen had no shoes as horses had.^ Here 

 is his description of a harrow : it is ' made of six final peeces 

 of timber called harow bulles, made either of ashe or oke ; they 

 be two yardes long, and as much as the small of a man's leg ; 

 in every bulle are five sharpe peeces of iron called harow tyndes, 

 set somewhat a slope forward.' This harrow, drawn by oxen, 

 was good to break the big clods, and then the horse harrow 

 came after to break the smaller clods. It differed slightly 

 from the former, some having wooden tines. For weeding 

 corn the chief instrument * is a pair of tongs made of wood, and 

 in dry weather ye must have a weeding hoke with a socket set 

 upon a staffe a yard long.' ^ 



He recommends that grass be mown early, for the younger 

 and greener the grass is the softer and sweeter it will be when 

 it is hay, and the seeds will be in it instead of fallen out as 

 when left late ; advice which many slovenly farmers need 

 to-day. He does not approve of the custom of reaping rye 

 and wheat high up and mowing them after, but advises that 

 they be cut clean ; barley and oats, however, should be 

 commonly mown. Both wheat and rye were to be sown at 

 Michaelmas, and were cast upon the fallow and ploughed 

 under, two London bushels of wheat and rye being the neces- 

 sary amount of seed per acre. In spite of his praise of the 

 plough he allows that the sheep 'is the most profitablest 

 cattel that a man can have', and he gives a list of their 

 diseases, among the things that rot them being a grass called 

 sperewort, another called peny grass, while marshy ground, 

 mildewed grass, and grass growing upon fallow and therefore 

 full of weeds were all conducive to rot. The chief cause, how- 

 ever, is mildew, the sign of whose presence is the honeydew 

 on the oak leaves. In buying cattle to feed the purchaser is 



^ Booke of Husbandry (ed. 1 568), fol. vi. ' Ibid. fol. xv. 



