Gervase Markham, who was born about 1568 and died in 1637, gives us a description of the day's work of the English farmer. He is to rise at four in the morning, feed his cattle and clean his stable. While they are feeding he is to get his harness ready, which will take him two hours. Then he is to have his breakfast, for which half an hour is allowed. Getting the harness on his horses or cattle, he is to start by seven to his work and keep at it till between two and three in the afternoon. Then he shall bring his team home, clean them and give them their food, dine himself, and at four go back to his cattle and give them more fodder, and getting into his barn make ready their food for next day, not forgetting to see them again before going to his own supper at six. After supper he is to mend shoes by the fireside for himself and his family, or beat and knock hemp and flax, or pitch and stamp apples or crabs for cider or verjuice, or else grind malt, pick candle-rushes, or 'do some husbandry office within doors till it befall eight o'clock'. Then he shall take his lantern, visit his cattle once more, and go with all his household to rest. The farm roller of this time, according to Markham, was made of a round piece of wood 30 inches in circumference, 6 feet long, having at each end a strong pin of iron to which shafts were made fast.[306] He mentions wooden and iron harrows, but this refers only to the tines, the wooden ones being made of ash. From an illustration of a harrow which he gives, it appears it was much like Fitzherbert's and many used to-day: a wooden frame, with the teeth set perhaps more closely than ours; the single harrow 4 feet square drawn by one horse, the double harrow 7 feet square by two oxen at least. Wheat he says, when the land is dug 15 inches deep, and the seed dibbled in, will produce twelve times as much as when ploughed; but he admits the 'intricacy and trouble' of this method.[307] As to the question of mowing or reaping corn, he is of opinion that though 'it is a custom in many countries of this kingdom not to sheare the wheat but to mow it, in my conceit it is not so good, for it both maketh the wheate foule and full of weede'. Barley, however, should be mown close to the ground, though many reap it; oats too were to be mown. His directions for planting an orchard[308] are interesting, both as showing the kinds of fruit then grown, the number of different sorts planted together, and the growth of the olive in England.[309] The orchard, he says, should be a square, divided into four quarters by alleys, and in the first quarter should be apples of all sorts, in the second pears and wardens of all sorts, in the third quinces and chestnuts, in the fourth medlars and services. A wall is the best fence, and on the north wall, 'against which the sunne reflects, you shall plant the abricot, verdochio, peache, and damaske plumbe; against the east side the white muskadine