THE PRICE OF LIVE STOCK. 337 



were at least four kinds of horses in common or frequent use; the 

 very cheap and poor sort, employed for the meanest husbandry 

 and carriage, plough and cart-horses engaged in the heavier 

 work of agriculture, hacks used for riding and sumpter purposes, 

 and animals employed for war and the convenience of great 

 personages. The highest prices given in the subjoined tables 

 are almost always of the last two kinds, and the full prices of 

 each kind stated generally for the first 140 years would be ios. t 

 2Oj. } 40^., and Sos., exceptional sums being given for animals 

 of great strength and courage. 



SHEEP. These are distinguished as before by various names. 

 There are hurtards or rams, the former name (' the butter ') im- 

 plying that the sheep was horned, muttons, or wethers, some- 

 times spelled weders or wedres, hoggs, hoggerels, hoggasts, 

 or hoggasters, ewes, jercions, which are to ewes what hoggs are 

 to muttons, bidentes, verveces, probably wethers, oves, dyn- 

 mouths, arietes (at Swyn and Durham), gymmers (Durham), and 

 lambs. Sometimes ewes and lambs are sold together, occasion- 

 ally sheep are distinguished as wool-sheep and shearlings, once 

 wethers are described as fat and ley. 



I have given a table of the highest price of muttons or 

 wethers. The early years of the period contain chiefly records 

 of farm sales and purchases, and occasionally of sheep for the 

 table. But most of the entries are of sheep cast out of the 

 flock and sold, under the name of kebb stock, a word which 

 now seems wholly lost, crones, rigones, and poke sheep. As 

 the later part of my enquiries deals almost entirely with 

 animals purchased for immediate consumption, it was necessary 

 in order to obviate a totally false inference to adopt this course 

 instead of drawing an average from actual sales. Nor have I 

 thought it necessary on the present occasion to give, or rather 

 to attempt to give, averages of the price of ewes, hoggs, and 

 lambs. I should have failed to supply instances in the later 

 years of the two former, and unless one could be sure of the 

 lamb's age, there would be no solid inference to be drawn from 

 the price of the latter. 



VOL. IV. Z 



