loo HISTORY OF AGRICULTURE 



Every man shall keep a sufficient fence against his neighbour 

 under the same penalty. No man shall make a footpath over 

 the corn-field, the penalty for so doing being ^d. Every one 

 shall both ring and yoke their swine before S. Ellen's Day 

 (probably May 3), under a penalty of 6s. 8</., the custom of 

 yoking swine to prevent them breaking fences being common 

 until recent times. It was the custom in some manors to sow 

 peas in a plot especially set apart for the poor. Another rule 

 was that no one should bake or brew by night for fear of 

 burning down the flimsy houses and buildings. The penalty 

 for ploughing up the balks which divided the strips, or meere 

 (marc) furrows as they were called in Lincolnshire, was 2<i'., 

 a very light one for so serious an offence. In 1565 a penalty 

 of 105. was imposed on Thomas Dawson for breaking his 

 hemp, i. e. separating the fibre from the bark in his large open 

 chimney on winter nights, a habit which the manor courts 

 severely punished owing to the risk of fire, for hemp refuse is 

 very inflammable. It 1578 it was laid down that every one 

 was to sow the outside portion of their arable lands, and not 

 leave it waste for weeds to the damage of his neighbours ; and 

 that those who were too poor to keep sheep should not gather 

 wool before 8 o'clock in the morning, in reference to the custom 

 of allowing the poor to pick refuse wool found on bushes and 

 thorns, and this rule was to prevent them tearing wool from 

 the sheep at night under that pretext. No man was to keep 

 any beasts apart from the herdsman, for if the herdsman did 

 not know the animals he could not tell them from strays. 

 Every one was to sweep their chimney four times a year, for 

 fear of sparks falling on the thatch. No man was to suffer 

 the nests of crows or magpies in his ground, but pull them 

 down before May Day. In the meadows, before each man 

 began to mow his grass he was to mark the exact limits of 

 his own land with ' wadsticks ' or tall rods, so that there could 

 be no mistake as to boundaries. The health of the com- 

 munity and of the live stock also received attention : in 1583 



