12] A TOPOGRAPHICAL 



about the latter end of August they plow it again, to kill the we&ds/ 

 and turn up the manure, that so they may return it again to their 

 seed; at the last plowing* when they sow* which is usually the 

 week before or after Michaelmas. 



The land thus prepared, they sow it with wheat; and if a strong 

 stiff clay or cold land, with red lammas or bearded wheat ; other- 

 wise, with white lammas and sometimes with both mixt ; allow- 

 ing of either two strike to an acre, whereof if they have twenty 

 again* they think it a good increase. The next grain they sow in 

 their cdnimon fields after wheat, are usually horse beans* or pease, 

 white or gray* or pease or beans mixt ; for these they plow at Can- 

 dlemas, and sow in the decrease of the moon* having found (as they 

 say) by long experience that they codd better; and are not so apt 

 to run into straw ; for seed they allow four strike of pease and five 

 of beans to a statute acre* whereof if they have again 20 strike of 

 the former and 30 of the latter per acre, they reckon it a competent 

 crop. But if either clay or light rriould lay out of the common 

 field, so that they may be tilled at pleasure, they are also capable 

 of improvement by marie, especially by the dice or flat marie, which 

 with rain runs like lime, and never bindes the stiffest clay, but 

 rather looserts it* so that after it has afforded eight or nine crops it 

 will yield very good g'rass; whereas clay-marie laid on the same 

 so bindes the surface, that though thoy will not fail giving seven or 

 eight crops of corn, yet they are rendered thereby ill-disposed at 

 lest for grass, unless the ground after all be well ttiuck't or ma* 

 nured with muck and lime mixt together, when it will yield two or 

 three crops more. And as for pure sandy gravelly ground* which 

 will naturally bear nothing but rye* trench wheat, or oates,nor these 

 neither unless well muck't* and then not above three years together 4 

 but it must f-est again, by the help of these marles used as above* 

 lime, and good muck, they arc made as good for all sorts of corn* 

 bearing as many crops as any land whatever. 



For the heathy land of this county it is seldom inclosed, but 

 when they intend it for tillage* which is never for above five year 

 neither> and then it is thrown open to the commons again ; when 

 they do inclose such, they generally proceed in the manner follow* 

 ing : First they stock up the heath with mattocks, and then fallow 

 it in winter* and in the summer ensuing give it its proper manure, 

 which is lime, allowing four loads to each statute acre, each load 

 tontaining four quarters of lime, which, when slacked, is spread on 

 the ground with shovels, and plowed in under furrow about the mid* 



