LITTLE GADDESDEN. 265 



Klades-klutar til godsel pa akern. 



Rags as manure on arable fields. 



On the fields which were sown with wheat, we saw 

 here and there rags, klutar, or small laps, lappar, 

 of old clothes, which were ploughed down in the field. 

 Those who dwell here about Ivinghoe, and are 34 miles 

 from London, do not fail to take the trouble to buy from 

 tailors and others in London, all sorts of old rags which 

 they carry from thence home, cut them into small bits, 

 strow them over the field which they wish to sow with 

 wheat, plough them down, and sow wheat therein. They 

 said they scarcely knew of anything, which so manures 

 the fields, and forwards the growth of crops in such a 

 soil as they have there ; for these laps hold back the 

 moisture a long time and are a good manure, with several 

 advantages. 



Akrar utan hackar eller stangsel. 



Arable fields without hedges or fences. 



All these large flat fields which were situated down 

 in the valleys around Ivinghoe, lay quite open, without 

 any fence or barrier, hagnad eller stangsel, either of 

 hedges or deadwood fences of any kind, hackar eller 

 gardsel. I asked why they had not planted hedges 

 around the field as a barrier, til stangsel, as in all the 

 other places in the neighbourhood ? Some answered 

 that hedges will not grow quickly in this soil. Others 

 said that the fields all lie here in teg-skifte, exchange- 

 able slips, intermixed, om hvart annat, so that it is 

 thus not commonly done ; for if one will go forward 

 another wishes to go back, and if one wishes to plant, 

 the other [T. I. p. 264] does not, and thus it is left 

 undone. Hence it comes that no one had liberty to do 

 it without a special Act of Parliament. I was tolerably 

 satisfied with the latter reason, but the former I had 



