y store cattle, both steers and heifers, of three or four
years old, which being well wintered at grass, or on straw at the barn
doors, will be the sooner fed the summer following, and they will
sooner feed after straw than grass.

From October to May are calves to be reared, because then they be more
hardly bred and become the stronger cattle. Feed brawns, bacons,
lards, and porkets on mast if there is any, if not on corn. 'In these
months cleanse poundes or pools, this season being the driest;' an
extraordinary assertion, unless the climate has changed, seeing that
according to the monthly averages from 1841-1906, taken at the Royal
Observatory, Greenwich, October is the wettest month in the year.[285]

November and December. Sort all kinds of sheep until Lady Day, viz.
wethers by themselves, and weaning lambs by themselves; and do not put
rams to the ewes before S. Lukestide, October 18, for those lambs fall
about March 25, and if they fall before then the scarcity of grass and
the cold will so nip and chill them that they will die or be
weaklings. It is good at this time to take draught cattle and horses
from grass into the house before any great storms begin. Thrash corn
now after it hath had a good sweat in the mow, and so dried again, and
give the straw to the draught oxen and cattle at the standaxe or at
the barn doors for sparing of hay, advice which Tusser also gives:

'Serve rie straw out first, then wheat straw and peas,
Then ote straw and barley, then hay if ye please.'

FOOTNOTES:

[252] _R.A.S.E. Journal_, 1896, pp. 77 sq., and Gerard, _Herbal_ (ed.
1633), p. 232.

[253] About 1684, John Worlidge wrote to Houghton that sheep fatted on
clover were not such delicate meat as the heath croppers, and that
sheep fatten very well on turnips. Houghton, _Collection for
Improvement of Husbandry_, iv. 142. This is said to be the first
notice of turnips being given to sheep.

[254] _R.A.S.E. Journal_, 1896, p. 77. One of the proofs of the rarity
of vegetables among the poorer classes of England, especially in the
Middle Ages, is the fact that rents paid in kind never included them.

[255] _R.A.S.E. Journal_, 1892, p. 19.

[256] Chapple, _Review of Risdon's Survey of Devon_ (1785), p. 17 n.
_Victoria County History: Devonshire, Agriculture_.

[257] Blyth was a great advocate of enclosure. 'Live the commoners do
indeed', he says, 'very many in a mean, low condition, with hunger and
ease. Better