DOI Page / Citation link:
https://doi.org/10.11588/diglit.49977#0231
SEVENTEENTH CENTURY.
209-
ground was so knotty that the gardener was amazed to see it,
and as easy had it been, if I had not been, to make a shaft of
a cammock * * * § as a garden of that croft.”f The ordinary mole-
catchers were paid by the number of moles they caught,.
“ usually i2d. a dozen for all the olde moles they catch, and
6d. a dozen for younge ones. Now as for those who send
purposely for a mole-catcher to gette a single mole in a
howse, garden or the like, they will seldom take lesse than
2d. and sometimes 3d. for her if they gette her, because they
have payment onely for those they catch and if they misse
the lose is theires.”J The farmer, Henry Best, in the East
Riding of Yorkshire, who made these notes, has also left the
account of what he paid himself to the mole-catchers. In
“ 1628, April 28, paid to John Pearson for killing moules in
the carre one and a half dozen olde ones 13^., two dozen
young ones 6d.,” and so on. Several curious recipes for
killing moles are found in old gardening books. Sharrock
gives the following “Remedies against Moles” §:—“By watering
moles are drowned or driven up into so narrow a compass
that they may be easily taken. Mr. Blith relates one
spring, about March, a mole-catcher and his boy in about ten
dayes time, in a ground of go acres, took 3 bus[hels] old and
young. Among Mr. Speed’s notes there are these receipts:
Take red herrings and cutting them in pieces burn the
pieces on the molehills, or you may put garlicke or leeks
in the mouths of their Hill, and the moles will leave the
ground. I have not tryed these ways, and therefore refer
the reader to his own tryal, belief or doubt.”
For the destruction of other garden pests many equally
fanciful remedies were in vogue. Lawson recommends to pick
off all caterpillars with the hand, “and tread them under foot.”
“I like nothing of smoake among my trees,” he says; “unnaturall
heates are nothing good for naturall trees.” He enumerates the
things necessary for keeping the garden free from “ beasts,”
* a crooked tree.
f Dramatic and Poetical Works of R. Greene and G. Peele. By Dyce, 1861.
+ Rural Economy in Yorkshire, 1641. Surtees Society, 1857.
§ An Improvement in the Art of Gardening. By RobertSharrock, 3rd Ed., 1694.
14
209-
ground was so knotty that the gardener was amazed to see it,
and as easy had it been, if I had not been, to make a shaft of
a cammock * * * § as a garden of that croft.”f The ordinary mole-
catchers were paid by the number of moles they caught,.
“ usually i2d. a dozen for all the olde moles they catch, and
6d. a dozen for younge ones. Now as for those who send
purposely for a mole-catcher to gette a single mole in a
howse, garden or the like, they will seldom take lesse than
2d. and sometimes 3d. for her if they gette her, because they
have payment onely for those they catch and if they misse
the lose is theires.”J The farmer, Henry Best, in the East
Riding of Yorkshire, who made these notes, has also left the
account of what he paid himself to the mole-catchers. In
“ 1628, April 28, paid to John Pearson for killing moules in
the carre one and a half dozen olde ones 13^., two dozen
young ones 6d.,” and so on. Several curious recipes for
killing moles are found in old gardening books. Sharrock
gives the following “Remedies against Moles” §:—“By watering
moles are drowned or driven up into so narrow a compass
that they may be easily taken. Mr. Blith relates one
spring, about March, a mole-catcher and his boy in about ten
dayes time, in a ground of go acres, took 3 bus[hels] old and
young. Among Mr. Speed’s notes there are these receipts:
Take red herrings and cutting them in pieces burn the
pieces on the molehills, or you may put garlicke or leeks
in the mouths of their Hill, and the moles will leave the
ground. I have not tryed these ways, and therefore refer
the reader to his own tryal, belief or doubt.”
For the destruction of other garden pests many equally
fanciful remedies were in vogue. Lawson recommends to pick
off all caterpillars with the hand, “and tread them under foot.”
“I like nothing of smoake among my trees,” he says; “unnaturall
heates are nothing good for naturall trees.” He enumerates the
things necessary for keeping the garden free from “ beasts,”
* a crooked tree.
f Dramatic and Poetical Works of R. Greene and G. Peele. By Dyce, 1861.
+ Rural Economy in Yorkshire, 1641. Surtees Society, 1857.
§ An Improvement in the Art of Gardening. By RobertSharrock, 3rd Ed., 1694.
14