Agriculture -- England; Conduct of life; Home economics, Rural
*** After this section I. R. inserts a quantity of additional
matter, which he tells us (at p. 174) is drawn from his ‘owne
experience in byrds and foules.’ The additional chapters treat
of choice of cocks, hens for brood, number of eggs to each hen,
chickens, diseases of poultry (especially of the pip), choice of
poultry, how to fat poultry, how to make capons, where to keep
poultry, how to choose, keep, and fatten geese, how to keep ducks,
peacocks, ‘ginny or turkie-cocks,’ pigeons, pheasants, turtles,
partridges, and swans; after which digression he returns to his
text. I may remark that he considers it essential that a hen should
sit upon _an odd number_ of eggs, say 19, and that matters should
be so arranged as to provide for the hatching of chickens ‘in the
increase of the Moone.’ The leaves of a bay-tree, ‘or els some
Bents or Grasse,’ will preserve eggs ‘from the hurt of thunder.’
Chickens ought not ‘to be breathed vpon by any Snake, Toade, or
other venomous thing’; if they are, you must quickly burn amongst
them some ‘_Galbanum_, or womans hayre.’ Those that have the pip
should be dieted on Hearbgrace [rue] or garlic. Geese ‘are more
watchfull then Doggs.’ ‘You must vse in the time of brooding, to
lay vnder your egges [of geese] the rootes of Nettles, to the end
the Gosling may escape stinging of Nettles, which otherwise many
times killeth them.’ If geese are to have fat livers, feed them
on dry figs mingled with water. Ducks chiefly delight in acorns.
If you praise a peacock, ‘he will presently sette vp his taile.’
A turkey-cock ‘is very highly esteemed of, both for his rarenesse
and greatnes of body;’ and we are told that he changes the colour
of the wrinkled skin about his head at pleasure, either to white,
red, blue, yellow, ‘or what other colour els hee list; which thing
maketh him seeme wonderfull st[r]ange to them that behold it.’
... ‘Their greatest diseases is the Pip and the Squecke.’ As to
pigeons, ‘I haue knowne some that haue builded their Doue-houses
vpon high pillars ouer the midst of some Pond or great water, both
because they delight much in water, and also to keepe them the
safer from vermine.’ Swans ‘will, when they waxe olde, declare the
time of their own death to be neere approching, by a sweete and
lamentable note which they then sing.’
=145.= 15. I. R. has--‘Wherefore it is conuenient (I say) that
they loue each other as effectually as loue can in the best sence
comprehend: and this worke especiallie, a woman is bound both by
law and nature to performe.’ Why so?
=146.= I. R. omits ll. 2-7; he was certainly a Protestant.
8. _redy._ This is the old word for _dressed_, as might be shewn
by many examples. It may suffice to say that I. R. explains _araye
theym_ in l. 11 by _make them ready_.
10. _socle_] suckle. I. R. omits _sye vp thy mylke_, which he
probably did not understand.
Public-domain text, read in full here on John Shaqi.
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