Spare eating of meadowe.
2
Spare meadow at [Gregorie],[E272] marshes at [Pask],
for feare of drie Sommer, no longer time ask.
Then hedge them and ditch them, bestow thereon pence:
corne, meadow and pasture, aske alway good fence.
In Lent haue an ey to shéep biters.
3
Of mastiues and [mungrels],[E273] that manie we see,
a number of thousands too manie there bee.
Watch therefore in Lent, to thy sheepe go and looke,
for dogs will haue vittles,[2] by hooke or by crooke.[E274]
Setting of hops.
4
In March at the furdest, drie season or wet,
hop rootes so well chosen, let skilfull go set.
The [goeler][3] and yonger the better I loue;
well [gutted][4] and [pared], the better they proue.
5
Some laieth them croswise, along in the ground,
as high as the knee they doo couer vp round.
Some prick vp a stick in the mids of the same,
that little round hillock the better to frame.
6
Some maketh a hollownes, halfe a foot deepe,
with fower sets in it, set slant wise a [steepe]:
One foot from another, in order to lie,
and thereon a hillock, as round as a pie.
7
Five foot from another ech hillock would stand,
as straight as a [leaueled] line with the hand.
Let euerie hillock be fower foot wide,
the better to come to on euerie side.
8
By willowes[E275] that groweth thy hopyard without,
and also by hedges thy meadowes about.
Good hop hath a pleasure to climbe and to spred,
if Sunne may haue passage to comfort hir bed.