The thrift of the fatness drieth himself (itself) therein, so that even the thicker the field is marled, the better corn will it bear.’[252] An old rhyme says:— He that marles sand may buy land; He that marles moss shall suffer no loss; But he that marles clay throws all away. An interesting surname of this class is that of ‘Acreman,’ or, as it is now generally spelt, ‘Acherman,’ ‘Akerman,’ or ‘Aikman,’ for it is far from being of modern German introduction, as some have supposed. In the Hundred Rolls and elsewhere it appears in such entries as ‘Alexander le Acherman,’ ‘Roger le Acreman,’ ‘Peter le Akerman,’ and ‘John le Akurman.’ His was indeed a common and familiar sobriquet, and we are but once more reminded by it of the day when the _acre_ was what it really denoted—the ager, or land open to tillage, without thought of definite or statute measure. Indeed, it is quite possible the term was at first strictly applied thus, for a contemporaneous poem has the following couplet:— The foules up, and song on bough, And acremen yede to the plough. If this be the case the surname is but synonymous with ‘Plowman’ and ‘Tillman,’ already referred to. A curious name is found in the writs of this period, and one well worthy of mention, that of ‘Adam le Imper.’ An ‘imp,’ I need scarcely remind the reader, was originally a ‘scion’ or ‘offshoot,’ whether of plants or animals, the former seemingly most common, to judge from instances. That nothing more than this was intended by it we may prove by Archbishop Trench’s quotation from Bacon, where he speaks of ‘those most virtuous and goodly young imps, the Duke of Suffolk and his brother.’[253] Chaucer says that of feble trees their comen wretched imps— and ‘Piers Plowman’ uses the word still more explicitly— I was some tyme a frere And the conventes gardyner For to graffen impes, he says. This latter quotation explains the surname. ‘Imper,’ doubtless, simply differed from ‘Gardiner’ or ‘Gardner’ in that he was more particularly engaged in the grafting of young shoots.