will give a guess at the sale of corn for the year following.  And our countrymen do use commonly for barley, where I dwell, to judge after the price at Baldock upon St. Matthew’s day; and for wheat, as it is sold in seed time.  They take in like sort experiment by sight of the first flocks of cranes that flee southward in winter, the age of the moon in the beginning of January, and such other apish toys as by laying twelve corns upon the hot hearth for the twelve months, etc., whereby they shew themselves to be scant good Christians; but what care they, so that they come by money?  Hereupon also will they thresh out three parts of the old corn, towards the latter end of the summer, when new cometh apace to hand, and cast the same in the fourth unthreshed, where it shall lie until the next spring, or peradventure till it must and putrify.  Certes it is not dainty to see musty corn in many of our great markets of England which these great occupiers bring forth when they can keep it no longer.  But as they are enforced oftentimes upon this one occasion somewhat to abate the price, so a plague is not seldom engendered thereby among the poorer sort that of necessity must buy the same, whereby many thousands of all degrees are consumed, of whose death (in mine opinion) these farmers are not unguilty.  But to proceed.  If they lay not up their grain or wheat in this manner, they have yet another policy, whereby they will seem to have but small store left in their barns:  for else they will gird their sheaves by the band, and stack it up anew in less room, to the end it may not only seem less in quantity, but also give place to the corn that is yet to come into the barn or growing in the field.  If there happen to be such plenty in the market on any market day that they cannot sell at their own price, then will they set it up in some friend’s house, against another on the third day, and not bring it forth till they like of the sale.  If they sell any at home, beside harder measure, it shall be dearer to the poor man that buyeth it by twopence or a groat in a bushel than they may sell it in the market.  But, as these things are worthy redress, so I wish that God would once open their eyes that deal thus to see their own errors:  for as yet some of them little care how many poor men suffer extremity, so that they fill their purses and carry away the gain.

It is a world also to see how most places of the realm are pestered with purveyors, who take up eggs, butter, cheese, pigs, capons, hens, chickens, hogs, bacon, etc., in one market under pretence of their commissions, and suffer their wives to sell the same in another, or to poulterers of London.  If these chapmen be absent but two or three market days then we may perfectly see these wares to be more reasonably sold, and thereunto the crosses sufficiently furnished of all things.  In like sort, since the number of buttermen have so much increased, and since they travel in such wise that they come to men’s houses