THE PRICE OF LIVE STOCK. 337 



So in 1304 another boar is fattened on five quarters five 

 bushels of drage, and sent to Oxford from Cuxham on the 

 Wednesday after the feast of St. Barnabas, i. e. on June i6th. 

 Six porci, however, are brought into saleable condition by 

 twelve bushels of the same grain. Again, in 1335 two porci 

 are fattened on seven bushels of drage and two of peas, and 

 are sold in November at 35-. 6d. each. Thus it would seem 

 that the medieval farmer reckoned on two to four bushels 

 as necessary in order to bring what we should call marketable 

 pigs into sufficient conditions. 



In general, pigs were kept for some time on grains, called 

 drasch in the accounts. This substance is bought very cheaply, 

 that is at a few pence the quarter. Bran was also used for the 

 same purpose. In very dear years the price of these articles 

 rises considerably. Pigs are occasionally said to be leprous, 

 and were especially liable to measles, that is to entozoa, and 

 the accounts frequently allude to forced sales of animals in 

 which the latter disease was present or suspected, though it 

 does not appear that such a circumstance seriously depreciated 

 the market value of the animal. On an average, though there 

 is evidence of an increase of the price of pigs during the 

 two periods 1311-1320 and 1361-1370, there is, as might be 

 expected, less fluctuation in the market value of these animals 

 than in that of others. As in our times, the carcase of the pig 

 was salted into flitches, or bacons as they are called, and into 

 hams, or pernae. Wild boars, though rarely mentioned, are not 

 unknown. 



Sows are sold at rather higher prices than porci, and are 

 frequently mentioned as purchased with litters of pigs. While 

 the sow was farrowing she was fed in the stye, and the charge 

 to which the manor was put in grain for this purpose is re- 

 gularly credited to the bailiff. Thus in the Cuxham account, 

 printed at length in the second volume, p. 624, we find three 

 bushels of drage allowed to the sow during this critical period. 



Some idea of the condition of these pigs may be gathered from the note in vol. ii. p. 383, 

 in which we learn that 35 pigs gave 180 Ibs. of lard, that is, a little more than 5 Ibs. apiece. 



Z, 



