EARLY TUDOR GARDENS 
91 
Garden-tools have but little changed since the earliest times. 
The spade and rake now in use are much the same as those of 
Tudor days. Tusser, in the following passage, enumerates the 
tools then in use P 
“ Now set doo aske watering with pot or with dish; 
new sowne doo not so, if ye doo as I wish, 
Through cunning with dible, rake, mattock and spade, 
by line and by leuell, trim garden is made.” 
The cost of these tools can be ascertained from various accounts. 
The prices ranged from 46.. to is. * 1 2 
Probably many of the tools were home-made. Fitzherbert, 
in 1534, in his Book of Husbandry , devotes a paragraph to 
showing “ howe forkes and rakes shulde be made." He says 
that they should be prepared in the winter, “ when the hous- 
bande sytteth by the fyre, and hath nothynge to do than may 
he make theym redye, and tothe 3 the rakes with dry wethy- 
wode, and bore the holes with his wymble, 4 bothe aboue and 
vnder, and drive the tethe vpwarde faste and harde, and than 
wedge them aboue with drye woode of oke. . . . They be 
most comonly made of hasell and withee.” Fitzherbert also 
gives a list of the tools used for grafting : “ A graffynge-^sawe 
June 23rd.—“ Joan Fery, working for three days, iod.” 
August 19th.—“ Paid to Agnes Stringer, working for two days with a 
half, yd.” 
Several more entries of women gardeners follow these : “ Paid for 
bread and drink and herrings and other things (for) the gardeners, all 
women, as appears by the book of expenses of the second term in the 
seventh week, 2s. ifd.” (Cardinal's College , Oxford). 
“ 3 whemen for wedyng, 6d.” (Le Strange, Household Books). 
1 Five Hundred Pointes of Good Husbandrie. 
2 Hampton Court, March, 1533. Item for three iron rakes serving 
for the King’s new garden at 6d. the piece—i8d. Item for a hachet 
serving for the said garden, 6d. Item for three new knives to shred 
the quicksets in the new garden at 3d. the piece, gd. Item for six 
pieces of round line to measure and set forth the new garden, i2d. Item 
for two cutting hooks, 2s. Item for two cutting knives, 4d. Item for 
two rakes, i6d. Item for two chisels, 6d. Item for a grafting saw, 4b. 
The price paid for a spade at Hunstanton, in Norfolk, on July 7th, 1538, 
was 8d., and on December 1st, in the same year, 5b., and “ for a hatt- 
chett, a rake and a parying yearne ( sparing-iron) for the garden, iod. 
March nth, 1543 ” (Le Strange, Household Books). 
3 =tooth. 4 ==an auger. 
