220 ON THE PRICE OF GRAIN. 



There is no reason to doubt that the relative proportions in 

 the value of wheat, barley, and oats, designated by the in- 

 ferences of the first two volumes, were maintained during the 

 period before us. They stand, roughly speaking, at 100, 73, 

 and 50, oats being taken at their best prices, for every quality 

 of oats came into the market. But I must remind my readers 

 that by far the largest amount of information comprised in 

 these two volumes comes from Eastern England, in which 

 barley was the staple product, and generally cheap. Besides, 

 in accordance with the law of prices, when articles of the same 

 genus are cheap, the lowest prices prevail in the inferior species 

 of the same genus, the reverse phenomenon occurring when 

 prices are high. 



The information given as to the price of peas is pretty 

 continuous, many kinds, black, white, grey, and green, being 

 recorded, the second and fourth apparently being always used 

 for human food. The entries of vetches and beans, as might 

 be expected, are scanty. They are rarely bought by consumers, 

 even for horses, as our forefathers were accustomed to buy horse- 

 bread, into which it is probable that beans entered largely. But 

 the purchases of horsebread never give the weight of the article. 

 Garden beans are found twice, and were probably familiar. 

 Most likely the college or monastery kept its own seed from 

 year to year. Frequently beans and peas are taken together. 



There is considerable, almost continuous, evidence as to the 

 price of oatmeal. It appears that oatmeal measured by the 

 bushel was reckoned at the meal only, while wheatmeal, the 

 price of which by the bushel differs but little, except in the 

 cost of the miller's labour and toll from the corn, was bought 

 by the estimated bushel of wheat, or by that which the meal 

 represented before grinding. I cannot conceive how this 

 correspondence between corn and wheatmeal can be otherwise 

 explained. 



I shall now proceed to make a brief comment on the harvest 

 of each year, mentioning the localities from which evidence 

 has been forthcoming as far as appears necessary, tracing when 



