150 Corn and Corn Products Trades 



vailing in these bore a regular relation to those of London.^ About 

 1750 the Gentleman'' s Magazine was publishing regularly the prices of 

 corn that prevailed in the following markets: Basingstoke, Reading, 

 Farnham, Henley, Guilford, Warminster, Devizes, Gloucester, and 

 Crediton. These were the principal markets whence the London 

 supply was drawn. The corn-markets of importance mentioned by 

 Pococke in north interior of England were Cross Hall and Orms- 

 kirk and Prescot.- Farnham Market, Surrey, was " the greatest Corn- 

 Market in England, London excepted; particularly for Wheat," and 

 in 1738 it was reported that as many as "eleven hundred Teams of 

 Horse, all drawing Waggons, or Carts, loaden with Wheat; every Team 

 supposed to bring a Load, . . . Forty Bushels of Wheat," might 

 be counted on a market day.^ 



This carriage of corn to market in these districts by wagon and cart 

 developed very early, for in 1663 a special act* was passed to impro\e 

 the roads, since "in many of which places the road, by reason of the 

 great and many loads which are weekl}' drawn in waggons through 

 the said places, as well by reason of the great trade of barley and malt 

 that Cometh to Ware, and so is conveyed by water to the city of 

 London, as other carriages ... is very ruinous, and become 

 almost impassible." The corn thus assembled at the markets was 

 bought by the corn -buyers, carried to the milling districts, like Guil- 

 ford and Hertfordshire and upper Thames towns, whence it found its 

 way by water or land carriage to London.^ Kingston, Henley, Great 

 ]Mar]ow, Reading, and Abingdon were towns of great embarkation 

 on the Thames, for the great quantities of malt and meal brought from 

 the neighboring towns and loaded on barges for London.^ 



^This long legislative contest against the rise of middlemen in the 

 corn business was at basis a struggle between the economic interests 

 of the locality and of the metropolis. The local pubHc market system 

 was designed to serve primarily the local community with a sure 

 supply of necessities. Only after the denizens had had opportunities 

 to buy and the real existence of a surplus was thereby known were 

 any non-freemen permitted to buy. The consumptive wants of the 

 home-town were to be satisfied before bu>'ers for the metropolitan 



1 Gent. Mag., 1756: 575; 1758: 278. 



= Pococke (1750), I, 207, 209. 



^iDefoe, Tour, I, 213-14. 



^ 15 Chas. II, Cap. 1. 



' Defoe, Com. Eng. Tr., II, 175. 



« Defoe, Tour, II, 54-5. 



