Note E309 — 51.

"A weede hooke, a crotch, and a gloue." Fitzherbert (Boke of Husbandry, 1586) enumerates, as "ye chyef instrumentes for weeding, a paier of tonges made of wood and in the farther end it is nicked to hold ye wede faster ... yf it be drye wether then must ye have a wedying hoke with a socket set upon a lytle staffe a yard longe. And this hoke wolde be wel steled and grounde sharpe bothe behynde and before. And in his other hande he hath a forked stycke a yarde long." The whole account of weeding in the "Boke" is very quaint. In former days thistles were gathered from the corn for the feeding of cattle, and the left hand of the reaper was guarded with a leathern glove: there is an entry among the expenses of the Priory of Holy Island for 1344-5 of "gloves for 14 servants when they gathered the tythe corn, 2s. 8d." See Johnston's "Botany of the Eastern Borders."—Note by Mr. J. Britten, F.L.S.