170 Corn and Corn Products Trades 



malt from Abingdon to London."^ The cost of carriage by water 

 was much lower than by road, and the roads were not used when 

 river na\dgation was possible. In 1800 it was said that the water 

 rates were only one-third as high as the land rates, and the roads had 

 been improved much by that date.- The Thames barges were the 

 largest in use in the inland trade of England. Down stream from 

 Reading, Abingdon and other river-ports they carried the corn, malt, 

 and meal; up stream from London they brought to these same towns 

 as distributing points, coal, salt, groceries, tobacco, oils, and heavy 

 goods. ^ "They were remarkable for the length of Vessel and the 

 Burden they" carried "and yet the httle water they" drew. Some 

 carried a thousand quarters of malt at a time, and yet drew but two 

 feet of water. This burden w^as at least a hundred tons. The Thames 

 was na\igable a hundred and fifty miles for such barges.'* As early 

 as 1637 there had become established a regular system of water- 

 carriers on the Thames. Twice-a-week such barges plied between 

 Queenhite and the upper Thames towns; and once a week one went 

 as far as Reading. A weekly hoy sailed between London and Col- 

 chester. These had regular schedules, termini, and docks.^ 



The malt was assembled at the river marts in wagons by the larger 

 farmers; for example, in 1745 Defoe said that "at Abingdon . . . 

 they have a barley market, where you see every market-day four or 

 five hundred carts and wagons of barley to be sold at a time, standing 

 in rows in the market-place, besides the vast quantities carried directh^ 

 to the maltsters' houses;'"' while the "malting trade at Ware, 

 Hertford, Royston, Hetchin, and other towns on that side of Hert- 

 fordshire, fetch their barley twenty, thirty, or forty miles."- The 

 southern coast towns sent their meal "about by long sea," as they 

 called it. In the first decades of the century the Chichester merchants 

 diverted part of the Farnham business to their port by building 

 elevators and storing up the corn of the vicinity until ground in their 

 mills and shipped to London by sea. Other coast towns followed this 

 example." 



All this malt and meal came to Queenhithe, London, making it 



1 V. C. H., Berks, I, 407. 



= Ibid., II, 214. 



3 Defoe, Tour, II, 47. 



* Ibid., 175. 



'" Taylor, Car. Cos. 



« Defoe, Com. Eng. Tr., II, 180. 



■ Defoe, Tour, I, 204. 



