Note E357 — 57.
Reading edition
Though all the editions which I have seen read as printed in the text, it is evident that Tusser meant exactly the opposite, viz.:
"By day will deceiue thee, etc. By great will dispatch, etc."
Men who take work by the great, that is, by the job or contract, are, as experience tells us, naturally anxious to get the work done as soon as possible, while those who are engaged by the day as naturally try to spin out the work as long as they can. According to Carr's Craven Glossary, a Day-work is three roods of land. "Four perches make a day-worke; ten daysworks make a roode or quarter." (Twysden MS. quoted by Halliwell.) The latter agrees with Norden's statement: "You must know (says he), that there goe 160 perches to one acre; 80 perches to halfe an acre; 40 perches to one roode, which is ¼ of an acre; ten daies worke to a roode, foure perches to a daies worke; 16 foote and a halfe to a perche." (Surveior's Dialogue, 1610.) In Cowel's Interpreter we read "Day-werc of Land, as much arable ground as could be ploughed up in one day's work, or one journey, as the farmers still call it."