dry and open; therefore fore sow early that corn
may be nourished by winter moisture. Chalky and sandy ground need not
be sown early. At sowing, moreover, do not plough large furrows, but
little and well laid together, that the seed may fall evenly. Let your
land be cleaned and weeded after S. John's Day, June 24, for before
that is not a good time; and if thistles are cut before S. John's Day
'for every one will come two or three.' Do not sell your straw; if you
take away the least you lose much; words which many a landlord to-day
doubtless wishes were fixed in the minds of his tenants.

Manure should be mixed with earth, for it lasts only two or three
years by itself, but with earth it will last twice as long; for when
the manure and the earth are harrowed together the earth shall keep
the manure so that it cannot waste by descending in the soil, which it
is apt to do.

'Feed your working oxen before some one, and with chaff. Why? I will
tell you. Because it often happens that the oxherd steals the
provender.'

The oxen were also to be bathed, and curried when dry with a wisp of
straw, which would cause them to lick themselves.

'Change your seed every year at Michaelmas; for seed grown on other
ground will bring more profit than that which is grown on your own.'

Apparently the only drainage then practised was that of furrow and
open ditch; and we find him saying that to free your lands from too
much water, let the marshy ground be well ridged, and the water made
to run, and so the ground may be freed from water.

Here is his estimate of the cost of wheat growing[83]:

'You know surely that an acre sown with wheat takes three
ploughings, except lands which are sown yearly; and that each
ploughing is worth 6d. and the harrowing 1d., and on the acre
it is necessary to sow at least two bushels. Now two bushels at
Michaelmas are worth at least 12d., and weeding 1/2d., and
reaping 5d., and carrying in August 1d., and the straw will pay
for the threshing.'[83]

The return was wretched: 'at three times your sowing you ought to have
6 bushels, worth 3s.' The total cost is thus 3s. 1-1/2d.; and without
debiting anything for rent and manure, the loss would be 1-1/2d. an
acre.

The anonymous _Treatise on Husbandry_ of about the same date says,
however, that 'wheat ought to yield to the fifth grain, oats to the
fourth, barley to the eighth, beans and peas to the sixth.'[84] In the
y