A Short History of English Agriculture

by W. H. R. Curtler

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. 1¹/₂d.; and without debiting anything for rent and manure, the loss would be 1¹/₂d. 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 years 1243-8 the average yield of wheat at Combe, Oxfordshire, was 5 bushels per acre, of barley a little over 5, oats 7. In the Manor of Forncett, in various years from 1290 to 1306, wheat yielded about 10 bushels, oats from 12 to 16, barley 16, and peas from 4 to 12 bushels per acre.[85]

As for the dairy, 2 cows, says Walter, should yield a wey, (2 cwt) of cheese annually, and half a gallon of butter a week, 'if sorted out and fed in pasture of salt marsh;' but 'in pasture of wood or in meadows after mowing, or in stubble, it should take 3 cows for the same.' Twenty ewes, which it was then the custom to milk, fed in pasture of salt marsh, ought to yield the same as the 2 cows. A gallon of butter was worth 6d., and weighed 7 lb. And the anonymous treatise says each cow ought to yield from the day after Michaelmas until the first kalends of May, twenty-eight weeks, 10d. more or less; and from the first kalends of May till Michaelmas, twenty-four weeks, the milk of a cow should be worth 3s. 6d.; and she should give also 6 stones (14 lb. per stone) of cheese, and 'as much butter as shall make as much cheese.'[86] It was a common practice all through the Middle Ages, and survives in localities to-day, to let out the cows by the year, at from 3s. to 6s. 8d. a head, often to the daya or dairymaid, the owner supplying the food, and the lessee agreeing to restore them in equal number and condition at the end of the term.[87] The anonymous treatise tells us that 'if you wish to farm out your stock you can take 4s. 6d. clear for each cow and the tithe, and for a sheep 6d. and the tithe, and a sow should bring you 6s. 6d. a year and acquit the tithe, and each hen 9d. and the tithe; and Walter says, 'When I was bailiff the dairymaids had the geese and hens to farm, the geese at 12d. and the hens at 3d.'

Among other information conveyed by these two treatises we learn that the poor servants or labourers were accustomed to be fed on the diseased sheep, salted and dried; but Walter adds, 'I do not wish you to do this.' Nor can we point the finger of scorn at this: for in the disastrous season of 1879 numbers of rotten sheep were sold to the butcher and consumed by the unsuspecting public without even being salted and dried.

He further tells us that 'you can well have 3 acres weeded for 1d., and an acre of meadow mown for 4d., and an acre of waste meadow for 3¹/₂d. And know that 5 men can well reap and bind 2 acres a day of each kind of corn, and where each takes 2d. a day then you must give 5d. an acre.'[88] 'One ought to thresh a quarter of wheat or rye for 2d. and a quarter of oats for 1d. A sow ought to farrow twice a year, having each time at least 7 pigs; and each goose 5 goslings a year and each hen 115 eggs and 7 chicks, 3 of which ought to be made capons; and for 5 geese you must have one gander, and for 5 hens one cock.' The laying qualities of the hen, in spite of the talk of the 200-egg bird, were evidently as good then as to-day. In those days of self-supporting farms it was the custom to put together the farm implements at home, and the farmer is advised that it will be well if he can have carters and ploughmen who should know how to work all their own wood, though it should be necessary to pay them more.[89] The village smith, however, seems, as we should expect, to have done most of the iron work that was needed.[90]