HAY AND STRAW. 297 



was familiar, and common. But it was also customary for 

 corporations to hire pastures, and either feed the growing 

 grass, or mow the crop for home supply. Thus Corpus Christ! 

 College in Oxford constantly rents the mead at Magdalen, and 

 supplies its stables with hay from the produce. 



The average price of a load of hay corresponds very closely 

 in the decennial, and more markedly in the general averages, 

 with that of a quarter of barley, becoming, as I have said, 

 relatively rather dearer towards the conclusion of the period. 

 This is not indeed a high price, especially to modern ex- 

 perience ; but they who can remember the country prices of 

 hay, before railways and other earlier modes of communication 

 had so cheapened transit as to efface much of the difference 

 between town and country prices, will call to mind how 

 cheap hay used to be in moderately abundant seasons. Thus 

 in the fifteenth and sixteenth centuries, hay is constantly 

 double the country price in London, and is considerably 

 higher in places like Hornchurch and Sion, which were affected 

 by the London markets, than it is at Oxford or Cambridge, 

 though the former of these was an opulent and populous town. 

 Thus in 1448, the Hornchurch bailiff bought hay and sent 

 it to London for the use of the Warden of New College, 

 then as frequently residing in the city. In 1463, when hay 

 was 2s. ^d. the load at Oxford, it was bought at 6s. id. in 

 Southwark. 



It is not always possible to discover whether the cost of 

 hay includes the carriage of it to market. Sometimes it does 

 not, and the fact is noted. Sometimes it does, and the sign, 

 used constantly in the evidence to denote the fact, is recorded. 

 But in the long run, and over averages, these particular ob- 

 scurities are reciprocally corrected, and though the general 

 result may imply a lower price than that actually paid by the 

 consumer, the ratio of prices is as accurate as if the fact had 

 been invariably recorded and the cost included. 



Exceptionally dear years then, as 1418, 1447, 1459, I 4^ 

 1480, 1498, 1517, 1536, and 1540, are probably to be explained 



