Note E429 — 73.

According to Fitzherbert, the farmers' wives must have been patterns of diligence and industry, and a variety of duties devolved upon them which have since ceased to be required, or have fallen with more propriety upon the other sex. They had to measure out the quantity of corn to be ground, and see that it was sent to the miller. The poultry, swine, and cows were under their charge; and they superintended the brewing and baking. The garden was peculiarly the care of the farmer's wife. She had to depend upon it for various herbs which are no longer in use, but which could not be dispensed with when spices were rare and costly. Besides pot-herbs, strewing-herbs were required for the chambers, and herbs possessing medical virtues. The list of fruits at this date was confined to a few of indigenous growth, which were but little improved by skill and management. Tusser directs his housewife to transplant into her garden wild strawberries from the woods. All the writers on rural economy during this period recommend the farmer's wife carefully to attend to her crop of flax and hemp. When, however, Fitzherbert asserts that it is a wife's duty "to winnow all manner of corn, to make malt, to wash, and to make hay, shear corn, and, in time of need, help her husband to fill the muck-wain or dung-cart, drive the plough, to load hay, corn, and such other, to go to market and sell butter or pigs, fowls or corn," it is to be presumed that he had in his view the smallest class of yeomen, who had no hired servants.