14) A TOPOGRAPHICAL 



dows : about Weeford they also sow drills, or lentils, on their fw>or* 

 est land, to teed sherp and cattle in winter ; they also sow muncorn 

 or wheat and rye mix't ; they matter not how poor or hungry the 

 land be thir seed conies off, though to be sown on the rankest 

 soil, in general they ehuse corn for seed that grew on land of a dif- 

 ferent temper from that it is to be sown upon, as from clay lands to 

 sow on sandy, and from sandy> to sow on clay* To avoid blasting 

 and sinuttiiig> they steep their grain in brine before they sow it, 

 which they esteem a certain remedy for this disease of corn. To 

 prevent nieldewing, the most pernicious of all annoyances that in- 

 closures and rich lands are lyable to> Thomas Cartwright, parish 

 derk of Wombourn, either mixes his corn with soot before he sows 

 it, or sows soot upon it after the wheat's in the ground, by which 

 means he has preserved the corn from being meldcwed in lands ly- 

 able to it, and this not for one or two, but for ten years together, 

 which is certain matter of fact. They draw their plows here 

 both with oxen and horses, but rather with the former than the lat* 

 ter, because of their turning to a more certain profit, and of having 

 less of hazard in them, oxen always increasing in price with their 

 fatness t they generally plow with oxen in pairs, but horses in a 

 string, to -prevent poaching the land ; and so they do in some places 

 with their oxen too, in very wet seasons, being furnished with half- 

 yokes for that very purpose. 



When their corn is come up (especially oates and barley,) if sown 

 on a binding land, and it prove a dry time, at and about Church 

 Eyton, they sometimes harrow them again to break the clods and 

 loosen the earth, which will make them flourish much the better ; 

 for though it may pluck some up, yet making more spring by half 

 than it destroys, they account it advantageous ; after the corn is in 

 the blade, if it grow too ranck, they eat it oft" with sheep. At Alre- 

 was they mow oft" the tops of it before it spindles, and in 3Iay and 

 June they weed their corn with an iron digger, and another instru- 

 ment like a pair of smith's tongs, jagied like a rasp on the inner 

 sides to take th tinner hold, with which they pluck up the weed* 

 by the roots. 



When the time of harvest is come, they reap their wheat, and 

 bind it, and so they doe their rye ; when bound they gather nine 

 sheaves together and sett them upon their butt ends, and cover 

 them with three, and so let them stand ten or twelve days before 

 they carry them, the corn threshing the better the longer it stands ; 

 their barley they mow with the sithe and cador in the south parti> 



