ATION OF HOURS AND WAGES

The farming of this period is portrayed for us by Fitzherbert, the
first agricultural writer of any merit since Walter of Henley in the
thirteenth century. He was one of the Justices of Common Pleas, and
had been a farmer for forty years before he wrote his books on
husbandry, and on surveying in 1523, so that he knew what he was
writing about; 'there is nothing touching husbandry contained in this
book but I have had experience thereof and proved the same.' In spite
of the increase of grazing in his time he says the 'plough is the most
necessarie instrument that an husbandman can occupy', and describes
those used in various counties; in Kent, for instance, 'they have some
go with wheeles as they do in many other places'; but the plough of
his time is apparently the same as that of Walter of Henley, and
altered little till the seventeenth century. The rudeness of it may be
judged from the fact that in some places it only cost 10d. or 1s.
though in other parts they were as much as 6s. or even 8s. He
says[205] it was too costly for a farmer to buy all his implements,
wherefore it is necessary for him to learn to make them, as he had
done in the Middle Ages before the era of ready-made implements, when
he always bought the materials and put them together at home. On the
vexed question of whether to use horses or oxen for ploughing, he says
it depends on the locality; for instance, oxen will plough in tough
clay and upon hilly ground, whereas horses will stand still; but
horses go faster than oxen on even ground and light ground, and are
'quicke for carriages, but they be far more costly to keep in winter.'

According to him, oxen had no shoes as horses had.[206] Here is his
description of a harrow: it is 'made of six final peeces of timber
called harow bulles, made either of ashe or oke; they be two yardes
long, and as much as the small of a man's leg; in every bulle are five
sharpe peeces of iron called harow tyndes, set somewhat a slope
forward.' This harrow, drawn by oxen, was good to break the big clods,
and then the horse harrow came after to break the smaller clods. It
differed slightly from the former, some having wooden tines. For
weeding corn the chief instrument 'is a pair of tongs made of wood,
and in dry weather ye must have a weeding hoke with a socket set upon
a staffe a yard long.'[207]

He recommends that grass be mown early, for the younger and greener
the grass is the softer