390 ARTICLES EMPLOYED IN AGRICULTURE. 



the material for the averages in my first volume. Nor un- 

 fortunately is every year represented. I have found no entries 

 for the years 1470, 1471, 1477, 1480, 1486, 1496, and 1513. 

 The number of entries in each year and in the aggregate is 

 less, but the quantities are generally larger. I have therefore 

 thought it better to reckon salt by the quarter rather than by 

 the bushel, the unit taken in the earlier volumes. The averages 

 of the 142 years in the first period were derived from 1613 

 entries; those of the present 182 years have been yielded by 

 976 entries. The deficiencies, however, will not prevent me 

 from gathering the most important inferences which can be 

 derived from the price of this, as of analogous articles. 



Salt is purchased by the wey of five quarters, by the chaldron, 

 by the quarter, and by the bushel. Thrice, in the Sion account 

 of 1448, in the Howard account of 1462, and in the Osney 

 account of 1510, it is bought by the pipe, a measure which it is 

 difficult to believe identical in the three cases. From another 

 entry of 1462, we find that 'the wychwerke' contained two 

 quarters or sixteen bushels. In my first volume, p. 456, the 

 wychwerke contained eighteen bushels. 



Salt is distinguished according to its origin, as Paytou, i. e. 

 Poitou, Greatham, Bartfleet, or Barfitt (1494, 1538); by its 

 colour, as white, grey, black, subnigrum ; by its form, as gross 

 or great, small and bay. White is dearer than black or grey, 

 great than small. Towards the latter end of the enquiry, great 

 or gross salt appears to be purchased at factitious prices. 



I expressed the opinion in my earlier volumes that salt in 

 England was rarely produced from natural brine springs, and 

 by artificial heat, but chiefly by solar evaporation. It was 

 largely imported from Guienne, and its free introduction was 

 guaranteed by treaties. It is plain that stipulations in diplo- 

 matic documents, that the English should have free access to 

 French salterns, are a proof that the home produce was in- 

 adequate for the necessary demand, and that therefore the 

 enormous resources of the Cheshire and Worcestershire basins 

 had either not been discovered, or were not utilised. 



