y corne out
of this countrye nor any starch made of any kind of graine'. He adds
that he had 'refrayned the maulsters from excessive making of mault,
and had suppressed 20 alehouses'.[305] However, the senseless policy
of preventing trade in corn received a severe blow from the statute 15
Car. II, c. 7, which enacted that when corn was under 48s. persons
were to be allowed to buy and store corn and sell the same again
without penalty, provided they did not sell it in the same market
within three months of buying it, a statute which Adam Smith said
contributed more to the progress of agriculture than any previous law
in the statute book.

Gervase Markham, who was born about 1568 and died in 1637, gives us a
description of the day's work of the English farmer. He is to rise at
four in the morning, feed his cattle and clean his stable. While they
are feeding he is to get his harness ready, which will take him two
hours. Then he is to have his breakfast, for which half an hour is
allowed. Getting the harness on his horses or cattle, he is to start
by seven to his work and keep at it till between two and three in the
afternoon. Then he shall bring his team home, clean them and give them
their food, dine himself, and at four go back to his cattle and give
them more fodder, and getting into his barn make ready their food for
next day, not forgetting to see them again before going to his own
supper at six. After supper he is to mend shoes by the fireside for
himself and his family, or beat and knock hemp and flax, or pitch and
stamp apples or crabs for cider or verjuice, or else grind malt, pick
candle-rushes, or 'do some husbandry office within doors till it
befall eight o'clock'. Then he shall take his lantern, visit his
cattle once more, and go with all his household to rest. The farm
roller of this time, according to Markham, was made of a round piece
of wood 30 inches in circumference, 6 feet long, having at each end a
strong pin of iron to which shafts were made fast.[306] He mentions
wooden and iron harrows, but this refers only to the tines, the wooden
ones being made of ash. From an illustration of a harrow which he
gives, it appears it was much like Fitzherbert's and many used to-day:
a wooden frame, with the teeth set perhaps more closely than ours; the
single harrow 4 feet square drawn by one horse, the double harrow 7
feet square by two oxen at least. Wheat he says, when the land is dug
15 inches deep, and the see