17.
Be mindeful abrode, of thy Mighelmas spring,
for theron dependeth, a marueilous thing:
When [gentiles] vse walking, with hawkes on their handes,
Good husbandes, with grasing doe purchase their landes.
18.
And as thou come homeward, bye xl. good crones,
and fatte me the bodies, of those sely bones:
With those and thy swine, [or and] shrouetyde be past,
thy folke shal fare well, where as others shal fast.
19.
Thy saffron plot, pared in saint mary daies,
for pleasure and profit, shal serue many waies:
With twenty foote square, knowing how for to doo,
shal [stede] both thine own house, and next neighbour too.
[¶ September.]
20.
Threshe sede and goe fanne, for the plough may not lye,
September doth bid, to be sowing of rye:
The redges well harrowde, or euer thou strike,
is one poynt of husbandry, rye land do like.
21.
Geue winter corne leaue, for to haue full his lust,
sowe wheate as thou mayst, but sowe rye in the dust:
Be carefull for sede, for such sede as thou sowe,
as true as thou liuest, loke iustly to mowe.
22.
The sede being sowne, waterforow thy ground,
that rain, when it cummeth, may runne away round:
The diches kept skowred, the hedge clad with thorne,
doth well to drayne water, and saueth thy corne.
23.
Then furth with thy slinges, and thine arowes & bowes,
till ridges be grene, kepe the corne from the crowes:
A good boye abrode, by the day starre appere,
shall skare good man crowe, that he dare not come nere.
24.
At Mihelmas, mast would be loked vpon,
and lay to get some, or the mast time be gon:
It saueth thy corne well, it fatteth thy swyne;
In frost it doth helpe them, where els they should pine.