on to the common pasture.  Probably, as in other manors in ancient times, each occupier had a right to as much firewood as was necessary, and timber for building purposes and fences.  The arable land lay in numerous small plots of half an acre each and less, mingled together in a state of great confusion, and was farmed on the four-field system—­wheat, beans, oats, fallow—­though 200 years before the three-field system had been most common in the district.  Many of the common arable fields evidently often contained, in those days of poor cultivation and inefficient drainage, patches of boggy and poor land which were left uncultivated.[229] In the rolls of the Manor of Scotter in Lincolnshire, in the early part of the sixteenth century, no one was to allow his horses to depasture in the arable fields unless they were tethered on these bad spots to prevent them wandering into the growing corn.[230] Many of the other regulations of this manor throw a flood of light on the farming of the day.  In 1557 it was ordered that no man should drive his cattle unyoked through the corn-field under a penalty of 3s. 4d.  Every man shall keep a sufficient fence against his neighbour under the same penalty.  No man shall make a footpath over the corn-field, the penalty for so doing being 4d.  Every one shall both ring and yoke their swine before S. Ellen’s Day (probably May 3), under a penalty of 6s. 8d., the custom of yoking swine to prevent them breaking fences being common until recent times.  It was the custom in some manors to sow peas in a plot especially set apart for the poor.  Another rule was that no one should bake or brew by night for fear of burning down the flimsy houses and buildings.  The penalty for ploughing up the balks which divided the strips, or meere (marc) furrows as they were called in Lincolnshire, was 2d., a very light one for so serious an offence.  In 1565 a penalty of 10s. was imposed on Thomas Dawson for breaking his hemp, i.e. separating the fibre from the bark in his large open chimney on winter nights, a habit which the manor courts severely punished owing to the risk of fire, for hemp refuse is very inflammable.  It 1578 it was laid down that every one was to sow the outside portion of their arable lands, and not leave it waste for weeds to the damage of his neighbours; and that those who were too poor to keep sheep should not gather wool before 8 o’clock in the morning, in reference to the custom of allowing the poor to pick refuse wool found on bushes and thorns, and this rule was to prevent them tearing wool from the sheep at night under that pretext.  No man was to keep any beasts apart from the herdsman, for if the herdsman did not know the animals he could not tell them from strays.  Every one was to sweep their chimney four times a year, for fear of sparks falling on the thatch.  No man was to suffer the nests of crows or magpies in his ground, but pull them down before May Day.  In the meadows, before each man began to mow his grass he was to mark the exact limits of his own land with ‘wadsticks’ or tall rods, so that there could be no mistake as to boundaries.  The health of the community and of the live stock also received attention:  in 1583 one Pattynson was fined 1s. for allowing a ‘scabbed’ horse to go on the common; dead cattle were to be buried the day after death, and all unwholesome meat was to be buried.