1 82 AVERAGES OF PRICES. 



to calculate the average from the number sold as well as from 

 the prices paid. But in the absence of such information, it 

 seemed in my opinion best to take the course which I have 

 adopted. As a result, I make no doubt that prices are some- 

 times unduly enhanced, sometimes unduly depressed, but it 

 was I think necessary to hold to a uniform rule in these 

 calculations. And if my reader is disposed to dispute my 

 rule, as he well may in such cases as those of cattle, or, 

 which is more to the purpose, in those of sheep and pigs, I 

 fear that he will find, experto credat^ any other method far more 

 delusive. 



II. 1 have generally omitted all notices of inferior grain, and 

 generally of inferior articles. Thus, for instance, no note has 

 been taken of scurril or cursal wheat, barley, &c. As however 

 this adjective is commonly used to designate a second quality 

 of malt, and generally that made from drage or bere, I have 

 reckoned these entries among others denoting such second 

 qualities of malt only. Similarly, I have omitted, in calculating 

 the average price of cattle and other live stock, such quotations 

 as evidently point to animals much below the average in value. 

 Again, in estimating the average value of wool, I have been 

 constrained occasionally to neglect certain entries, since it 

 was manifest that they would have unduly depressed the 

 average. Hence, as it was necessary to make some omis- 

 sions, it was impossible to delegate the labour of striking 

 the averages. I should have been glad had the information 

 which has been collected for estimating the price of wool been 

 large enough for the purpose of separation into districts. I 

 shall hope, however, to be able to shew that even among the 

 various kinds of best wool, so very large a difference in value 

 subsisted, as to suggest that there were different breeds in 

 different districts. I cannot otherwise account for the low 

 price of this produce from parts of Sussex, Dorsetshire, Derby- 

 shire, and the north-west of England, simultaneously with far 

 higher prices in other localities. In taking averages from so 

 large a collection of facts, it was, I submit, necessary to exercise 



