vian
term which came to us from our forefathers is more seemly to our mind
than the modern Latin importation. Nowadays any word is better than one
drawn from our old English tongue. We may not speak of anything so
indelicate as a belly, but we can mention an abdomen in the politest
society. Provided we denote them by their Latin or Greek names, we may
even mention any parts of our viscera (I may not say bowels) without
raising a blush. Mention them in English, and we are at once boors and
churls. But the husbandman's occupation has changed with the language.
Originally he was merely a hus-bondi, or house-inhabitor, though probably
he had more to do with agriculture than the farmer who ousted him. The
'fermor' farmed or rented certain land from his overlord, making what he
could out of the tenants on it. And in time even the word 'farmer' will
pass out of use. Just as the charwoman to-day insists upon a fictitious
gentility, so in years to come the farmer will denote himself an
agriculturist, possibly with the epithet 'scientific.' We no longer talk
of villeins and carles; both have become sadly perverted in their
meaning, although the dictionary still allows the latter to mean 'a
strong man.' But, it hastens to add, vindictively, 'generally an old or a
rude-mannered one.' So is our language changing.

They are quaint volumes, the older treatises on husbandry, and for the
most part they contain an extraordinary medley of information. There is a
charm about their titles and language that few other classes of books
possess. Poultry, we know, can be obstinate wildfowl, but who nowadays
would write of their 'husbandlye ordring and governmente'? Such was the
title of Mascall's work put forth in 1581. Pynson printed an interesting
book on estate management in 1523 for, probably, John Fitzherbert: 'Here
begynneth a ryght frutefull mater; and hath to name the boke of surveying
and improuvements.' It is full of curious conceits, even concerning the
good housewife who, says Gervase Markham in his 'Country Contentments,'
'must bee cleanly both in body and garments, she must have a quicke eye,
a curious nose, a perfect taste, and ready eare.' But these volumes are
not easy to find, even though the book-hunter's nose be as curious as a
housewife's, and, when perfect, are of considerable value. Tusser's
curious rhyming 'Hundred good pointes of husbandrie,' enlarged later to
'Five Hundred Pointes,' is perhaps the commonest of these earl