Four kinds of grafting were practised:  in the cleft, and in the bark, the two most usual ways; shoulder or whip grafting, and grafting by approach,[295] the last ’where the stock you intend to graft on and the tree from which you take your graft stand so near together that they may be joined, then take the sprig you intend to graft and pare away about three inches in length of the rind and wood near unto the very pith, and cut also the stock on which you intend to graft the same after the same manner that they may evenly join each other, and so bind them and cover them with clay or wax.’  Inoculation was also practised, ’when the sap is at the fullest in the summer, the buds you intend to inoculate being not too young but sufficiently grown.’  For transplanting the middle of October is recommended, and the wise advice added, ‘plant not too deep,’ and in clay plant as near the surface as possible, for the roots will seek their way downward but rarely upward; and in transplanting ’you may prune the branches as well as the roots of apples and pears, but not of plums.’  The best distance apart in an orchard for apples and pears was considered to be from 20 to 30 feet, the further apart the more they benefit from the sun and air, a piece of advice which many a subsequent planter has neglected.  For cherries and plums 15 to 20 feet was thought right.  Worlidge’s directions for pruning are minute and careful, and should be well hammered into many slovenly farmers to-day.

Cider-making was performed much as it is in old-fashioned farms to-day, by mashing the apples in a trough by means of a millstone set edgeways, and then pressing the juice out through hair mats, the juice, says Hartlib, ’having been let stand a day or two and the black scum that ariseth in that time taken off they tunne it, and in the barrels it continueth to work some days longer, just as beer useth to do.[296] Another method was to put the fruit in a clean vessel or trough, and bruise or crush it with beetles, then put the crushed fruit in a bag of hair-cloth and press it.[297] After the cider was in the barrels there was placed in them a linen bag containing cloves, mace, cinnamon, ginger, and lemon peel which was said to make the cider taste as pleasantly as Rhenish wine.

Worlidge gives us what is perhaps the first mention of a poultry farm, and strangely enough it seems to have paid.  ’I have been credibly informed that a good farm hath been wholly stocked with poultry, spending the whole crop upon them and keeping severall to attend them, and that it hath redounded to a very considerable improvement’.[298] Incubators of a very rude sort were used, three or four dozen eggs being placed in a ‘lamp furnace made of a few boards’, and hatched by the heat of a lamp or candle.