ON THE PRICE OF FARM PRODUCE. 373 



chaldrons are bought at Deptford at us. 4</., and eighteen and 

 a-half in London at us. In 1569 the dockyard at Gillingham 

 gives 13^-. ^d. the chalder, and the same price is paid at London 

 in 1570. In 1574, seventy-one and a-half chalders are bought 

 in London at qos., and two sacks in Hunstanton at Sd. In 

 Cambridge, King's College in 1579 buys one chalder at i6s. 8d., 

 eleven at iSs., one at 13^, id., one at 12^. Sd., and purchases 

 thirteen in Lynn at 12.9. jd. Next year it buys nineteen at 

 145-., London paying in the same year i$s. for half a chalder 

 and iis. Sd. for thirty. In 1581 London buys half a chalder 

 at 13^-. 4d., and Cambridge buys eleven great chalders in Lynn 

 at us. 6d., and twelve at los. 6d., the carriage of the two 

 parcels being 265-. Sd. and 28^. respectively, making with the 

 carriage the cost of the first lot 13^-. iid. and of the second 

 I2s. lod. the chaldron. 



The average price of twelve entries of sea-coal by the chaldron 

 at Sion is 6s. zd., and may be taken to adequately represent 

 the London price. All these entries precede 1540. The 

 average of five entries in London subsequent to the above date 

 is 14.$-. 5</., and the rise corresponds to that which is found in 

 other money values. The average of seven entries at Hun- 

 stanton and its neighbourhood is 5.$-. $\d. Three purchases at 

 Hunstanton and Lynn after 1540 give us. i\d. 



Sea-coal was used for working iron, whenever its price ren- 

 dered this use expedient. Sion purchases iron largely in mass. 

 But sea-coal is in all places dearer than charcoal, except of 

 course in the immediate neighbourhood of the mines. 



It may be mentioned here, that in the year 1427 (vol. iii. 

 p. 549, iii) the monks of Finchale purchased four acres of coal- 

 field at ;io the acre. 



Besides wood, charcoal, and sea-coal, sedge was extensively 

 used in the Eastern counties as fuel, and indeed has not been 

 disused till within recent memory. Information as to the 

 price of this article is very abundant from the -Cambridge 

 colleges, where it is sometimes the principal kind of fuel used, 

 especially in the later period, when other sources of artificial 



