[E99] Shaken timber is such as is full of clefts and cracks. Bestowe and stick it, is to lay the boards neatly on each other, with sticks between, to admit the air.
[E100] The hook and line is a cord with a hook at its end to bind up anything with, and carry it away.—M.
[E101] "Flaies," probably a misprint in the edition of 1580 for flails, which is the reading of the other editions.
[E102] Cotgrave has: "Hastiveau, a hasting apple or peare;" and "Hastivel, as Hastiveau; or a soon-ripe apple, called the St. John's apple." Lacroix (Manners, Customs, etc., during the Middle Ages, p. 116) mentions "hastiveau, an early sort of pear."
[E103] "Vergis and perie." "Verjuice is well known to be the juice of Crabs, but it is not so much taken notice of, that for strength and flavour it comes little short if not exceeds lime-juice."—T.R. "Verjuice, or green juice, which, with vinegar, formed the essential basis of sauces, and is now extracted from a species of green grape, which never ripens, was originally the juice of sorrel; another sort was extracted by pounding the green blades of wheat."—Lacroix, Manners, Customs and Dress, during the Middle Ages, p. 167.
[E104] Make up your hedges with brambles and holly. "Set no bar" = put no limit, do not leave off planting quicksets while the months have an R in their names. See [chap. 35, stanza 6], p. 77, and note [E112], for 19. 33.
[E105] Laying up here signifies the first plowing, for Barley it is often plow'd, so as that a Ridge-balk in the middle is covered by two opposite furrows.—T.R.
[E106] By Fallow is understood a Winter-fallow, or bringing Ground to a Barley Season.—T.R.
[E107] "Brantham" parish, in Essex, in which Cattiwade is situated, and the place where Tusser first commenced farming. The average yield of corn in his time was, on each acre well tilled and dressed, twenty bushels of wheat, thirty-two of barley, and forty of oats and pulse.
[E108] Wheat does not thrive well either on very poor or very rich land. If the land is peeled or poor, the grain is burnt or steelie, and if proud (too heavily manured), the grain is apt to run to straw.