OAT THE PRICE OF FARM PRODUCE. 



a short table of these and cognate articles. But cider occurs 

 very rarely in the accounts of the i5th and i6th centuries. I 

 have been able to make only six entries in the first period 

 between 1402 and 1463, the price steadily falling from 6s. 8d. 

 and $s. to 3^. ^d. the pipe. Once, 1414, it is sold by the tun 

 of two pipes. Verjuice and crabs are bought frequently, and 

 at very various prices. A pipe of the former is bought in 1504 

 at 16^., another in 1524 at 2os., a hogshead in 1516 at los. 6d., 

 another in 1529 at 6s. 8d., others in 1550 at 9^-., in 1569 

 at 8s. 6d., in 1579 at los. It is bought by the gallon in 

 1488 at id., in 1510 at $\d. t in 1573 at is. i\d. Crabs vary 

 in price from 3.$-. 6d. the quarter to 8d. Arbitri, in 1510- 

 1515, are probably crabs, as Ompharium in 1572 is perhaps 

 verjuice. 



Apples are bought by the quarter or bushel, when the fruit is 

 of the common sort, by the hundred when it is intended for 

 the table. The former are found at is. 4d. the quarter in 1401, 

 at 8d. in 1412, at 4^. in 1494, at $s. 6d. in 1518, at 2s. 8d. in 

 1521, at ii\d. in 1538. But costard apples are bought at ^d. 

 the hundred, and pippins at 5^., in 1485. By the same measure 

 they are purchased at >]\d. in 1519, at ^d. in 1522, at 6\d. in 

 1524, at 6d. in 1529. So twenty deusans are bought for 8d. 

 in 1569, 12 pippins at id. each, 20 costards for ^d. But 

 orchards were common, and these purchases were made for 

 occasional feasts when home supplies ran short. 



The entries of pears, either under this name or described as 

 wardens and volemi, are more common. The first which has 

 come under my notice is a hundred and a-half wardens bought 

 (1417) in Cambridge at 8d. The next is 3000 volemi in 1467, 

 bought between Michaelmas and Feb. 20, for i2s. 4\d., 300 

 pears at 4^., 350 wardens for i s. iod., and a bushel of medlars 

 in 1494, 400 at 6d. in 1515, 250 in 1517 at 2s. 2d. the hundred, 

 these being volemi, 200 at $d. and 100 at $d. in 1520, 500 at 

 4d. in 1521, and a pannier at 8d., 1000 for $s. 4^., and another 

 1000 for 2s. 4d. in 1522, a hundred wardens for 4^., and a 

 bushel at the same price in the same year, when I find also the 



