ON THE PRICE OF GRAIN. 



price at Oxford. Peas are at ordinary prices at Cambridge, but 

 rather dearer at Worksop. In general, I conclude that the harvest of 

 this year, though generally deficient, was worst in the West and North. 

 Flour and wheat-meal are found at Oxford. 



1587-8. Prices are universally low. The King's College pur- 

 chases (for the College has not yet adopted the Act of 1576) are 

 given for two quarters, Michaelmas and Lady Day, the price varying 

 between 16^. and 14^. in the first of them, between los. 8d. and i2s. 

 in the second. In Norfolk, on Lestrange's lands, wheat is equally cheap, 

 as also at Kirtling. In Oxford the market sinks from Michaelmas to 

 Lady Day, and rises in the All Souls rent. The average would be 

 lower but for the Worksop entry, which is the highest of all, well nigh 

 double the Cambridge average. Barley is cheap, though some seed 

 is dear at Worksop. But a large quantity is sold from Norfolk. Cam- 

 bridge gives no malt prices, relying for supply on its contracts with its 

 tenants, all its supplies coming ex conventions lessae, as indeed all of its 

 wheat does, in the second and fourth quarters. But we can gather 

 what the Cambridge price of malt was from Kirtling, viz. 8.r. 6</., that 

 of Norfolk being 14^., while the Oxford market is at 13^., the All Souls 

 rents at los. $d. Oats are cheap at Eton, Kirtling, and Worksop, as is 

 also oatmeal. Rye is found in Norfolk at an average of gs. lod. 

 Beans and peas, evidence for which is rather plentiful, are also cheap. 

 Vetches, now a rare crop, or at any rate a produce rarely purchased, 

 are found in two places this year. The harvest of 1587 must have 

 been uniformly abundant. Wheaten flour at Oxford is also cheap. 



1588-9. Much of the low price of 1587 may have been an anticipa- 

 tion of the harvest of this year, in which wheat was cheaper than in 

 any other part of the period, cheaper than in any year since 1571. 

 The evidence, it is true, which I have is rather scanty, and the price 

 rises in Oxford as the year goes on. It is possible too that had 

 the Northern counties supplied me with evidence, the price would 

 have been exalted. It is also probable that the average produce being 

 of good quality the upset price of the corn-rents was an entirely 

 abnormal one, for the Cambridge account is entirely of purchases. 

 Even under these circumstances the maximum prices at Oxford, the 

 only corn-rents of the year, stand at i6s. 8d. on the average. 



This year, as my readers are no doubt aware, was that of the 

 Spanish Armada, in the destruction of which the equinoctial gales 

 played so sudden and so effective a part. These fierce south-western 

 gales, from whose premature appearance and violence England always 

 has had to suffer dearth or loss, came opportunely in 1588; and 



