May and June.  Sort all cattle for their summer pasture on May Day, viz. draught oxen by themselves, milch cows by themselves, weaning calves, yearlings, two-year-olds, three- and four-year-olds, every sort by themselves, which being divided in pasture fitting for them will make larger and fairer cattle.  Separate the horses in the same way.  Wash sheep and shear four or five days after, which done the wool is to be well wound and weighed, and safely laid up in some place where there is not too much air or it will lose weight, nor where it is damp or it will increase too much in weight.  Cleanse winter corn from thistles and weeds.

July and August.  First of all comes hay-making.  In August wean lambs, and put them in good pasture, and in winter put them in fresh pasture until spring, and then put them with the ‘holding’ sheep.

In these months is corn to be ‘shornne or mowen downe’ (the writer, it is to be noticed, has no preference for either method); and after the corn is carried put draught horses and oxen into the averish (corn stubble), to ease other pastures; and after them put hogs in.  Gather crabs in woods and hedgerows for making verjuice.

September and October.  Have all plows and harrows neat and fit for sowing of wheat, rye, mesling (wheat and rye mixed), and vetches.[284]

Pick hops.  Buy store cattle, both steers and heifers, of three or four years old, which being well wintered at grass, or on straw at the barn doors, will be the sooner fed the summer following, and they will sooner feed after straw than grass.

From October to May are calves to be reared, because then they be more hardly bred and become the stronger cattle.  Feed brawns, bacons, lards, and porkets on mast if there is any, if not on corn.  ’In these months cleanse poundes or pools, this season being the driest;’ an extraordinary assertion, unless the climate has changed, seeing that according to the monthly averages from 1841-1906, taken at the Royal Observatory, Greenwich, October is the wettest month in the year.[285]

November and December.  Sort all kinds of sheep until Lady Day, viz. wethers by themselves, and weaning lambs by themselves; and do not put rams to the ewes before S. Lukestide, October 18, for those lambs fall about March 25, and if they fall before then the scarcity of grass and the cold will so nip and chill them that they will die or be weaklings.  It is good at this time to take draught cattle and horses from grass into the house before any great storms begin.  Thrash corn now after it hath had a good sweat in the mow, and so dried again, and give the straw to the draught oxen and cattle at the standaxe or at the barn doors for sparing of hay, advice which Tusser also gives: 

     ’Serve rie straw out first, then wheat straw and peas,
     Then ote straw and barley, then hay if ye please.’

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