746 ON THE PROFITS OF AGRICULTURE. 



of the year 1332-3 by this quantity, we shall arrive at that 

 which, on my hypothesis, would be the later value of that 

 which might have been sold from the same acreage in 1561-70. 

 The amount so sold in 1332-3 is worth .49 i6s. id., includ- 

 ing those manorial incidents which certainly did not go with 

 the lease. This, multiplied as above, would be 125 iqs. 



The expenses, however, incurred in procuring the sum of 

 49 i6s. id. are, again omitting those which would not appear 

 in the farmer's account, about 27 ; so that the actual profit 

 gained in 1332 from a cultivation of an average of 181 acres 

 is only 11 i6s. id. Of these expenses, less than 4 is money 

 wages for labour. Upon 1$ then must be induced the rise 

 effected in implements and materials in husbandry, and this 

 cannot be less than double, while on the money wages only 

 will the lower rate of increase be reckoned. Taking the 

 multiplier of the 1$ at 2, and of the 4 at 1-6, the corre- 

 sponding deduction will be $i 8j., and the net value of the 

 sales will be 73 us. Thus far it would seem that the profit 

 of the Elizabethan farmer in money, is more than three times 

 that gained in the early years of Edward III, and that there- 

 fore there should have remained a considerable margin for an 

 increase of rent. 



The comparison, however, is not quite complete. We must 

 still take into account the value of the capital stock, and the 

 rate of profit derived from this item. I reckoned the profits 

 on the capital of 1332-3 at 18 per cent. Now the rise in the 

 price of the most important kind of live stock is to more than 

 three times that at which it stood in 1332; the rent of the land 

 must be supposed at any rate to have included interest on the 

 landlord's outlay for repairs and buildings ; and assuming that 

 the tenant expected as full a rate of profit as his landlord could 

 have made had he taken the land into his own hands, it 

 appears that the utmost on which the landlord could derive 

 a further rent from the Cuxham estate, would be about j IDS. 

 But from this is to be deducted the loss to the farmers from 

 the enclosures of the common fields, for I do not doubt that 



