AGRICULTURAL IMPLEMENTS AND TOOLS. 421 



with the proper irons for lasting use, was worth during the 

 fifteenth and the first part of the sixteenth century, taken with 

 a cart body, about zjs. $d. on an average, and that a pair of 

 shod iron wheels would cost about 25^., these being the averages 

 derived from my entries before 1540. Afterwards these articles 

 would cost about 6os. and 485-. 



Unprotected or plain wheels are very much cheaper. The 

 Lullington series is at about 43., but there are instances which 

 give 8s. } and even more. From the numerous entries of these 

 cheap wheels at Lullington, it is plain that they stood very 

 little wear, and were probably worn out in a twelvemonth or 

 two years. It is probable too that these plain wheels were 

 often protected by thin pieces of iron called clouts, and fre- 

 quently found in the earlier accounts, which were nailed on to 

 the wooden felly. These clouts and nails were so frequent in 

 the fourteenth century that I was able to construct annual and 

 decennial averages of their prices. They occur pretty fre- 

 quently in the fifteenth-century accounts till about 1460, when 

 they become rare, and finally disappear, partly because the 

 records of agriculture become scanty, partly because repairs 

 were undertaken by the village smith. The price ranges from 

 is. yd. to 2s. the doz. clouts, the nails being from $\d. to 3^. 

 the hundred. They become dearer during the decennial period 

 1441 50, when iron articles are generally expensive. 



My reader will recognise how seriously agriculture was 

 affected by the high price of iron and iron implements. The 

 plough was weak, the cart was clumsy, but both were rendered 

 less effective by the cost which the medieval husbandman 

 incurred by the lavish or even free use of iron. The inventions 

 which have made iron cheap, are as significant in the history of 

 agriculture as they are in that of other industries. 



HoRSE-SHOES. Horse- shoes are distinguished as fore and 

 hind, the former being almost invariably worth 2s. the dozen ; 

 the latter is. 6d. In the latter part of this period the price 

 rises to 35. and 4^. the dozen, the two kinds being no longer 

 distinguished. But these are the prices for horses employed for 



