aue accounted them both good
and carefull) that haue before Wheate seede time both themselues, wiues,
children, and seruants at times of best leasure, out of a great Wheate
mow or bay, to gleane or pull out of the sheafes, eare by eare, the most
principall eares, and knitting them vp in small bundells to bat them and
make their seede thereof, and questionlesse it is the best seede of all
other: for you shall be sure that therein can be nothing but the
cleanest and the best of the Corne, without any weedes or foulnesse,
which can hardly be when a man thresheth the whole sheafe, and although
some men may thinke that this labour is great and troblesome, especially
such as sowe great quantities of Wheate, yet let them thus farre
encourage themselues, that if they doe the first yeere but gleane a
bushell or two (which is nothing amongst a few persons) and sowe it vp
on good Land, the encrease of it will the next yeere goe farre in the
sowing the whole crop: for when I doe speake of this picking of Wheate,
eare by eare, I doe not intend the picking of many quarters, but of so
much as the increase thereof may amount to some quarter.

Now there is also another regarde to be had (as auailable as any of the
former) in chusing of your seede Wheate, and that is to respect the
soyle from whence you take your seede, and the soyle into which you put
it, as thus.

If the ground whereon you meane to sowe your Wheat be a rich, blacke,
clay, stiffe and full of fertillitie, you shall then (as neare as you
can) chuse your seede from the barrainest mixt earth you can finde (so
the Wheate be whole-straw or Pollard) as from a clay and grauell, or a
clay and white sand, that your seede comming from a much more barraine
earth then that wherein you put it, the strength may be as it were
redoubled, and the encrease consequently amount to a higher quantitie,
as we finde it proueth in our daylie experience; but if these barraine
soyles doe not afforde you seede to your contentment, it shall not then
be amisse (you sowing your Wheate vpon fallow or tilth ground) if you
take your seede-Wheate either from an earth of like nature to your owne,
or from any mixt earth, so that such seede come from the niams, that is,
that it hath beene sowne after Pease, as being the third crop of the
Land, and not from the fallow or tilth ground, for it is a maxiome
amongst the best Husbands (though somewhat proposterous to common sence)
bring to your rich ground seede