55 — ¶ Julies Husbandrie
Chap. 44
No tempest, good Julie,
Least corne lookes rulie.
Forgotten month past,
Doe now at the last.
Hay haruest.
1
Go muster thy seruants, be captaine thy selfe,
prouiding them weapon and other like pelfe.
Get bottles and walletts, keepe field in the heat,
the feare is as much, as the danger is great.
2
With tossing and raking and setting on cox,
grasse latelie in swathes is hay for an ox:E341
That done, go and cart it and haue it away,
the battel is fought, ye haue gotten the day.
Pay thy tithes.
3
Pay iustly thy tithes whatsoeuer thou bee,
that God may in blessing send foison to thee.
Though Vicar1 be bad, or the Parson as euill,
go not for thy tithing thy selfe to the Deuill.
4
Let hay be well made, or auise else auouse,E342
for molding in goef,2 or of firing the house.
Lay coursest aside for the ox and the cow,
the finest for sheepe and thy gelding alow.
5
Then downe with the hedlonds, that groweth about,
leaue neuer a dallop vnmowne and had out.
Though grasse be but thin, about barlie and pease,
yet picked vp cleane ye shall find therein ease.
Thry fallowing.
6
Thry fallowE343 betime, for destroieng of weede,
least thistle and duck3 fall a blooming and seede,
Such season may chance, it shall stand thee vpon,
to till it againe, er an Sommer be gon.
¶ Gathering of garden beanes.
7
Not rent4 off, but cut off, ripe beane with a knife,
for hindering stalke of hir vegetiue life.
So gather the lowest, and leaning the top,
shall teach thee a trick, for to double thy crop.E344
¶ Gather yellow hempe.
8
Wife, pluck fro thy seed hemp the fiemble hemp clene,
this looketh more yellow, the other more grene:
Vse ton for thy spinning, leaue Mihel the tother,
for shoo thred and halter, for rope and such other.E345
¶
95
Now pluck vp thy flax, for the maidens to spin,
first see it dried, and timelie got in.
And mowe vp thy branke, and away with it drie,
and howse it vp close, out of danger to lie.
¶ Wormewood get against fleas and infection.
10
While wormwoodE346 hath seed, get a handful or twaine,
to saue against March to make flea to refraine:
Where chamber is sweeped, and wormwood is strowne,
no flea for his life dare abide to be knowne.
116
What sauer 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 haue it, it is not in vaine.
¶ Be sure of bread and drinke for haruest.
12
Get grist to the mill, to haue plentie in store,
least miller lack water, as many doo more.E347
The meale the more yeeldeth, if seruant be true,
and miller that tolleth, take none but his due.
Thus Endeth Julies Husbandrie
Notes
1 curat. 1577.
2 mow. 1614.
3 dock. 1577.
4 rend. 1573 (M.), 1577.
5 St. 9 wanting in 1577.
6 St. 11 wanting in 1577.