56 THE RATE OF PRODUCTION IN THE 



de Ros, who then possessed the castle, assuredly cultivated 

 the whole of the southern valley. Thousands of acres have 

 been laid down in meadow which, centuries ago, bore crops 

 of corn. Similarly, thousands of acres in the suburbs of an- 

 cient towns are now built over, but once were used for grow- 

 ing corn. In the Holywell estate, on the north side of Oxford, 

 every parcel of ground that could be cultivated was occupied. 

 Thus, in 1341, the fields on this manor are designated as 

 Spital-furlong, Hithe-furlong, Street-furlong, Middle-furlong, 

 Brere-furlong, Austin-furlong, Frogmore, the Gores, the space 

 before the gate of the court-house, the Little Butts, the piece 

 by the manse of the Austin Friars, and that near the garden : 

 all these being sown with corn. England has been alternately 

 a corn growing and a gracing country: in the period before 

 us it was eminently the former. 



A considerable portion of the corn grown on the lord's 

 estate was absorbed in the payment of wages to carters, 

 ploughmen, shepherds, and the like. The customary allowance 

 of farm servants on the estates of the fourteenth century, is 

 one quarter every eight or ten weeks, besides money wages. 

 Supposing the servant were married, this would give five or 

 six as the number of the household, each of whom was pro- 

 vided with the material for food by the labour of the head 

 of the family. And I conclude that there were generally as 

 many people existent in this country in the fourteenth cen- 

 tury as there were, on an average, quarters of corn to feed 

 them with. And furthermore, I think that, judging from the 

 evidence before us, the rate of increase was not more than 

 four times. At present it is probably fifteen times, taking 

 one wheat crop with another. But if the present population 

 of England and Wales produces, as it most likely does, fifteen 

 millions of quarters yearly, and imports five, in order that its 

 twenty millions should subsist, and we deduct one fourth of 

 the area now cultivated, the wheat produced in England five 

 hundred years ago would not have sufficed for more than two 

 and a half to three millions. 



