Thomas Tusser

500 good points of Husbandrie

JULIES ABSTRACT

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JULIES ABSTRACT

 

GO, sirs and away,         Cut off, good wife,

to ted and make hay.         ripe bean with a knife.

If stormes draw nie,

then cock apace crie.         Ripe hemp out cull,

            from karle to pull,

Let hay still bide,         Let seede hempe growe,

till well it be dride.         till more ye know.

(Hay made) away carrie,

no longer tarrie.         Drie flax get in,

            for spinners to spin.

Who best way titheth,         Now mowe or pluck,

he best way thriveth.         thy branke or buck.

 

Two good haymakers,         Some wormewood save,

woorth thwenth crakers.       for March to have.

 

Let dallops about,         Mark Physick true,

be mowen and had out.       of wormewood and rue.

See hay doo looke greene,       Get grist to the mill,

see feeld ye rake cleene.       for wanting at will.

 

Thry fallow I pray thess,

least thistles bewray thee.

 

JULIES HUSBANDRIE

 

GO muster thy servants, be captaine thyselfe,         Hay harvest

providing them weapon and other like pelfe.

Get bolltles and walletts, keepe field in the heat,

the feare is as much, as the danger is great.

 

With tossing and raking and setting on cox,

grasse latelie in swathes is hay for an ox:

That done, go and cart it and have it away,

the battel is fought, ye have gotten the day.

 

Pay justly thy tithes whatsoever thou bee,         Pay thy tithes

that Gid may in blessing send foisen to thee.

Though Vicar be bad, or the Parson as evill,

go not for thy tithing thy selfe to the Devill,

 

Let hay be well made, or avise else avouse,

for moulding in goef, or fof firing the house.

Lay cousest aside for the ox and the cow,

the finest for sheepe and thy gelding alow.

 

Then down with hedlonds, that growest about,

leave never a dallop unmowne and had out.

Though grasse be but thin about barlie and pease,

yet picked up cleane ye shall find therin ease.

 

Thry fallow betime, for destoieng of weede,         Thry fallowing

least thistle and duck fall a blooming and seede,

Such season may chance, it shall stand thee upon,

to till it againe, er an Sommer be gon.

 

Not rent off, but cut off, ripe beane with a knife,       Gathering of garden beanes

for hindering stalk of hir vegetive life.

So gather the lowest, and leaving the top,

shall teach thee a trick, for to double thy crop.

 

Wife, pluck fro thy seed hemp the fiemble hemp clene,     Gather yellow hempe

this looketh more yellow, the other more grene:

Use ton for thy spinning, leave Mihel the tother,

for shoo thred and halter, for rope and such other.

 

Now pluck up thy flax, for the maidens to spin,

first see it dried, and timelie got in.

And mowe up thy branke, and away with it drie,

and howse it up close, out of danger to lie.

 

While wormwood hath seed, get a handful or twaine,     Wormwood get against

to save against March to make flea to refraine:       fleas and infection.

Where chamber is sweepted, and wormwood is strowne,

no flea for his life can abide to be knowne.

 

What saver is better (if Physick be true),

for places infected, than wormwood and rue.

It is as a comfort for hart and the braine,

and therefore to have it, itis not in vaine.

 

Get grist to the miller, to have plentie in store,

least miller lack water, as many doo more.

The meale the moore yeeldeth, if servant be true,

and miller that tolleth, take none but his due.