Poor Judie!-Thus Time knits or spins
The worsted from Life's ball!

Death stopt thy tales, and snapt thy pins,
-And so he'll serve us all.

A DESCRIPTION OF

HUSBANDRY FURNITURE:

BY THOMAS TUSSER.

A modern reader would suspect that many of the salutary maxims of this old Poem had decorated the margins, and illustrated the calendars of an ancient almanac. It is valuable, therefore, as a genuine picture of the agriculture, the rural arts, and the domestic economy and customs of our industrious ancestors in this county.

In this account of husbandry implements, Tusser takes up no less than eighty lines, and these lines consist of mere names tacked together, with scarcely an epithet that is not necessary. He likewise recommends the farmer to provide himself with a double set of the most necessary implements, to prevent any suspension of his work by accident.

BARN-LOCKED, gofe-ladder, short pitchfork, and long,*

Flail, straw fork, and rake, with a fan that is strong;†

A Gofe is a mow; and the Gofe ladder is for the thresher to ascend and descend in order to throw down the sheaves with the assistance of the short Pitch fork, while the long was for pitching the straw.

The Straw fork and Rake were to turn the straw from off the threshed corn; and the Fun and Wing to clean it,

Wing, cartnavet and bushel, peck, strike ready hand,
Get casting shouel, § broom, and a sack with a band.
A stable well planked, with key and with lock,
Walls strongly well lined, to bear off a knock;
A rack and a manger, good litter and hay,
Sweet chaff, and some provender, every day.
A pitch-fork, a dung-fork, sieve, skep,|| and a bin,
A broom, and a pail, to put water therein;
A hand-barrow, wheel-barrow, shovel, and spade,
A curry-comb, mane-comb, and whip for a jade.
A buttrice,* and pincers, a hammer and nail,
And apron, and scissars for head and for tail,
Whole bridle and saddle, whitleather, and nall,+
With collars and harness, for thiller and all.
A pannell and wanty,‡ pack-saddle, and ped,
A line to fetch litter, and halters for head;
With crotchets and pins, to hang trinkets thereon,
And stable fast chained, that nothing be gone.
Strong axle-treed cart, that is clouted and shod,
Cart-ladder and wimble, with perser and pod ;||
Wheel ladder for harvest, light pitch-forks, and
tough,

Shave, whip-lash well knotted, and cart-rope enough.

A Cartnave might be required to stand on in this operation. A Casting Shovel, such as malt-men use, enables the farmer to select the best and heaviest grain for seed, as they always fly farthest, if thrown with equal force.

|| A small basket, or wooden vessel with a handle, to fetch corn in, and for other purposes.

A Buttrice is to pare horses hoofs with.

↑ Whitleather is to mend harness with; and a Nall is an awl, such as collar-makers use.

A leather tie.

A box, or old leather bottle, nailed to the side of the cart, to hold grease.

An instrument with two handles, for working down wood to its proper size and form.

Ten sacks, whereof every one holdeth a coom,

A pulling-hook handsome, for bushes and broom;
Light tumbrel and dung-crone,† for easing Sir wag,
Shouel, pickax, and mattock, with bottle and bag.
A grindstone, a whetstone, a hatchet and bill,
With hammer, and English nail, sorted with skill;
A frower of iron, for cleaving of lath,

With roll for a saw-pit, good husbandry hath.
A short saw, and long saw, to cut a-two logs,
An axe, and an adze, to make trough for thy hogs;
A Dover Court beetle,|| and wedges with steel,
Strong lever to raise up the block from the wheel.
Two ploughs and a plough-chain, two culters, three
shares,

With ground clouts and side clouts for soil that sow tares;

With ox-bows and ox-yokes, and other things mo,
For ox-team and horse-team in plough for to go.
A plough-beetle, plough-staff, to further the plough,
Great clod to asunder that breaketh so rough;
A sled for a plough, and another for blocks,
For chimney in winter, to burn up their docks.
Sedge-collars for plough-house, for lightness of neck,
Good seed and good sower, and also seed peck;
Strong oxen and horses, well shod, and well clad,
Well meated and used, for making thee sad.
A barley-rake, toothed with iron and steel,
Like pair of harrows, and roller doth well;

A barbed iron for drawing firing from the wood stack.

+ A bent dung hook.

↑ A tool used for cleaving of lath.

At Dover Court, near Harwich, grows a strong, knotted, and crooked sort of Elm, famous for wearing like iron. Naves, made of this, are much sought after by wheelwrights and others, as being very durable, and not subject to split.

A sling for a mother, a bow for a boy,
A whip for a carter, is hoigh de la roy.§

A brush-scythe,* and grass-scythe, with rifle to stand,
A cradle for barley, with rubstone and sand;
Sharp sickle and weeding-hook, hay-fork and rake,
A meakt for the pease, and to swinge up the brake.
Short rakes for to gather up barley to bind,
And greater to rake up such leavings behind;
A rake for to hale up the fitches that lie,

A piket for to pike them up, handsome and dry.
A skuttle or skreen to rid soil from the corn,
And shearing-sheers ready, for sheep to be shorn;
A fork and a hook to be tamp'ring in clay,
A lath-hammer, trowell, a hod or a tray.
Strong yoke for a hog, with a twicher§ and rings,
With tar in a tar-pot, for dangerous things;
A sheep-mark, a tar-kettle, little or mitch,
Two pottles of tar to a pottle of pitch.
Long ladder to hang, all along by the wall,
To reach for a need to the top of thy hall;

Beam, scales, with the weights, that be sealed and true,

Sharp mole-spear with barbs, that the moles do so

rue.

Sharp-cutting spade, for the dividing of mow,

With skuppat and skavell,* that marsh-men allow:

A cant term for "just as it should be."

An old scythe with a particular kind of sned to cut up weeds. A Rifle is a bent stick, standing on the but of a scythe, by which the corn is struck into rows.

† A hook at the end of a handle, about five feet long, to hackle

up peas.

A pitch fork.

A large kind of skep.

A Twicher is used for clenching hog-rings.

A Skuppat or scoop is used, in marsh lands, to throw out the thin mud from the ditches; and a Skavel somewhat resembles a peat-spade.

A sickle to cut with, a didallt and crome,
For draining of ditches, that noyes thee at home.
A clavestock, and rabbetstock, carpenters crave,
And seasoned timber, for pinwood to have;
A jack for to saw upon, fuel for fire,

For sparing of fire-wood and sticks from the mire.
Soles, fetters, and shackles, with horse-lock and pad,
A cow-house for winter, so meet to be had,
A stye for a boar, and a hogscote for hog,
A roost for thy hens, and a couch for thy dog.

CAROL FOR ST. EDMUND'S DAY.

"Synge we nowe alle a su Ave rex gentis Anglorum."

The circumstances relating to St. Edmund, says the Historian of Bury, which took place on the retreat of the Danes, and which have formed a favorite theme for the monkish writers, and a favorite subject for their painters and sculptors, are given with miraculous embellishments, and with various degrees of amplification, by most of the monastic poets and historians.

To offer the utmost indignity to the martyred King, the Pagans cast his severed head and body into the thickest part of the woods at Eglesdene. When the departure of the Danes removed the terror which their presence had inspired, the East Anglians, prompted by affection for their late Sovereign, assembled, in considerable numbers, to pay his corpse the last duties of

+ A triangular spade.

Soles mean coarse leather soling for shoes, which formerly husbandmen and their servants applied, as wanted.