Animals

Sort out your cattle once a year between Easter and Whitsuntide---that is to say, oxen, cows, and herds---and let those that are not to be kept be put to fatten; if you lay out money to fatten them with grass you will gain. And know for truth that bad beasts cost more than good. Why? I will tell you. If it be a draft beast he must be more thought of than the other and more spared, and because he is spared the others are burdened for his lack. And if you must buy cattle buy them between Easter and Whitsuntide, for then beasts are spare and cheap. And change your horses before they are too old and worn out or maimed, for with little money you can rear good and young ones, if you sell and buy in season. It is well to know how one ought to keep cattle, to teach your people, for when they see that you understand it they will take the more pains to do well. If your cows were sorted out, so that the bad were taken away, and your cows fed in pasture of salt marsh, then ought two cows to yield a wey of cheese, and half a gallon of butter a week. And if they were fed in pasture of wood, or in meadows after mowing, or in stubble, then three cows ought to yield a wey of cheese and half a gallon of butter a week between Easter and Michaelmas without rewayn. And twenty ewes which are fed in pasture of salt marsh ought to and can yield cheese and butter as the two cows before named. And if your sheep were fed with fresh pasture or fallow, then ought thirty ewes to yield butter and cheese as the three cows before named. Now there are many servants and provosts and dairymaids who will contradict this thing, and that is because they give away and waste and consume the milk; and know for certainty the milk is not wasted otherwise but in the same thing, for so much they ought to and can yield, for I have proved it. And you will see it with regard to the three cows that ought to make a wey. One of these cows would be poor, from which one could not have in two days a cheese worth a halfpenny; that would be in six days three cheeses, price three halfpence. And the seventh day shall help the tithe and the waste there may be. Now that will be three halfpence in twenty-four weeks which are between Easter and Michaelmas--that is, three shillings. Now put as much for the second cow, and as much for the third, and then you will have nine shillings, and thereby you have a wey of cheese by ordinary sale. Now one of these three cows would be poor, from which one could not have the third of a pottle of butter a week, and if the gallon of butter is worth sixpence then is the third of a pottle worth a penny. If you wish to farm out the issue of your stock, you can take four-and-sixpence clear for each cow and acquit the tithe, and save for yourself the cow and calf; and for a sheep sixpence and acquit the tithe, and keep the sheep and lamb; and a sow should bring you six shillings and sixpence a-year and acquit the tithe, and save for yourself the sow; and each goose ought to bring you seven pence- halfpenny clear and acquit the tithe and save the goose; and each hen should bring you nine pence clear and acquit the tithe and save the hen. And ten quarters of apples and pears should yield seven tuns of cider; and a quarter of nuts should yield four gallons of oil. And each hive of bees ought to yield for two hives a-year, one with another, for some yield nothing and others three or four a-year, and in some places they are given nothing to eat all winter and in some they are fed then, and where they are fed you can feed eight hives all winter with a gallon of honey; and if you only collect the honey every two years, you should have two gallons of honey from each hive.