It will be seen from the above that Fitzherbert made no idle boast in saying he wrote of what he knew, and much of his advice is applicable to-day, though the time is past for the farmer's wife to 'wynowe all manner of cornes, to make malte, to shere corne, and in time of nede to helpe her husbande to fyll the mucke wayne or dounge carte, dryve the plough, lode heye, corne, and such other'; though she may go or ride to the market 'to sel butter, cheese, milke, eggs, chekyns, hennes, and geese.'[209] It appears that the horses of England at this time had considerably deteriorated, for the statute 27 Hen. VIII, c. 6, mentions the great decay of the breed, the cause it is stated being that 'in most places of this Realme little horsis and naggis of small stature and valeu be suffered to depasture and also to covour marys and felys of very small stature'; therefore owners and farmers of deer parks shall keep in every such park two brood mares of 13 'hand fulles' (hands) at least. Another statute, 32 Hen. VIII, c. 13, strove to remedy this evil by enacting that no entire horse under 15 hands was to feed on any forest, chase, waste, or common land.
This statute was a useful one, so also was 21 Hen. VIII, c. 8, which forbade for three years the killing of calves between January 1 and May 1, under a penalty of 6s. 8d., because so many had been killed by 'covetous persons' that the cattle of the country were dwindling in number. Others, however, were merely meddlesome, and directed against that unpopular man the dealer. For instance, owners refusing to sell cattle at assessed prices were to answer first in the Star Chamber (25 Hen. VIII, c. 1); and by 3 and 4 Edw. VI, c. 19, no cattle were to be bought but in open fair or market, and not to be resold then alive, though a man might buy cattle anywhere for his own use. No person, again, was to resell cattle within five weeks after he bought them (5 Edw. VI, c. 14); and a common drover had by the same Act to have a licence from three justices before he could buy and sell cattle. We may be sure that these laws were more honoured in the breach than in the observance, as they deserved to be.
Hops were said to have been introduced from the Low Countries about the middle of Henry VIII's reign; but there can be no doubt that this is a mistake. It has been mentioned that they flourished in the gardens of Edward I, and a distinguished authority[210] says the hop may with probability be reckoned a native of Britain; but it was first used as a salad or vegetable for the table, the young sprouts having the flavour of asparagus and coming earlier. Hasted, the historian of Kent, states[211] that a petition was presented to Parliament against the hop plant in 1428 wherein it was called a 'wicked weed'. Harrison says, 'Hops in time past were plentiful in this land, afterwards their maintenance did cease, and now (cir. 1580) being revived where are anie better to be found?'[212] Even then growers had to face foreign competition, as the customs accounts prove that considerable quantities were imported into England. In 1482 a cwt. was sold for 8s. and 1 cwt. 21 lb. for 19s. 6d., an early example of that fluctuation in price which has long characterized them.[213] Their average price about this time seems to have been 14s. 1/2d. a cwt.