"Bud well, bear well, God send you fare well, Every sprig and every spray A bushel of apples next New Year's Day. Morning, master and mistress, A happy New Year, A pocket full of money, A cellar full of beer. Please to give me a New Year's gift." A clergyman in Worcestershire communicated to the editor of "Brand's Antiquities" the following doggrel lines, but the occasion and use of them appear to be unknown, and it is not unlikely that some corruption has crept into them: "Wassail brews good ale, Good ale for Wassail; Wassail comes too soon In the wane of the moon." In the neighbourhood towards Ledbury it was customary for the farmers to complete wheat-sowing by what was called Allontide (Allhallows)--Nov. 1st. If they had finished by the previous night, a cake was divided between the dairymaid and the waggoner. If the latter could succeed in going into the kitchen by a certain hour at night, and cracking his whip three times, the cake belonged to him; but if the dairymaid, by any means in her power, could prevent the performance of the whip ceremony, she claimed one half of the cake. The maid was on the look-out an hour or so before the required time, and the wits of both parties were on the alert to counteract each other's movements, affording much amusement to the rustic spectators. Respecting the period for the completion of wheat-sowing, the following old saying prevailed in the above district many years ago: "At Michaelmas fair (Oct. 2) The wheat should hide a hare." Everybody knows that in the present day they do not begin sowing till after that date. Old Christmas is still observed, especially in the western parts of the county. In old-fashioned farmhouses the misletoe remains till the following Christmas Eve, when it is burned, and a fresh bough put up. HOP-CRIBBING, though nearly banished by the advance of education and improved manners, is occasionally performed in the secluded parts of this district. The usage is, that when a male stranger has to pass through the hop ground, he is seized by the women of the picking party, and threatened to be pitched into the crib (an article like a large cradle or child's crib, into which the hops are picked), and then to be smothered with the caresses of all the oldest and most snuffy women present, unless he will "shell out" something handsome to be spent in liquor. If he be young and cleanly, the chances are ten to one that he prefers paying the fine. Sometimes respectable women have been cribbed; but in all instances that have been brought before the magistrates, the law's supremacy over absurd custom has been vindicated. BEATING THE BOUNDS. Under the head of "Holy Thursday and its old customs at Worcester" the "Worcester Herald" of May 27, 1854, contained the following sketch, which is worthy of a place here: