198 ON THE PRICE OF GRAIN. 



6os. S^d., but this is lowered by the second All Souls rate and the 

 rapid fall in August and September. The most instructive register is 

 the monthly average of the Oxford market, where the maximum is 

 in April, with 73.$*. 3</., the annual average being 6is. if</. Barley 

 and malt are not, as might be expected from the known laws of 

 prices, so much elevated. But barley is %6s. 2\d. at Oxford, 40-$-. in 

 April at Lewes. Malt rents are at 35^. 2^d. in Cambridge, 35^. ^d. 

 in Kion, 34,?. $J. in the Oxford malt rents, and 35^-. ^d. in the market 

 averages. Oats, on the other hand, as might be expected, are 

 abnormally dear. They are at 24^. %\d. on an average of the second 

 and fourth quarters of the year in Cambridge. But the price of 

 oatmeal obtained from the New College purchases only is not so 

 elevated as might be expected. Beans have not been found, and peas, 

 though dear, are not at famine prices. There can be no doubt that 

 the cause of the calamity was a cold and wet summer. 



1631-2. We have now entered on a series of dear years. For 

 nine consecutive years the price of wheat does not fall below 40-5-. 

 They will be followed by seven years during which more moderate 

 prices are exhibited, and these by five years of famine, in which the 

 price is never below 50^., and for three consecutive years is above 6os. 

 There is a similar succession of bad harvests, though the parallel 

 is not exact, in the years 1799-1819 inclusive, in which the five 

 years 1809-13 may be compared with the five years 1646-50, and 

 these again with the four years 1314-7, 495 years, or eleven times 

 forty-five years, intervening between the earliest and latest of 

 these visitations. The average of the Cambridge wheat rents is 

 4is. $\d. The lowest prices of the year are at Lady Day and 

 Midsummer, but the prospects of the harvest become unsatisfactory, 

 and the August prices are the highest of the year everywhere. The 

 bakehouse at S. John's purchases 202 qrs. 6 bshs. at 405 i6.r. nd., 

 or 40.?. 2d. the quarter. The average price at Eton is &2S. There is 

 also a curious record from Harting, the estate of the Caryls. Here 

 a great deal of wheat is sold by the load (i. e. five quarters). It is cheap 

 in October, though I cannot guess what 'smut' wheat is, rises up to 

 May, falls through that month and June, begins to rise again, and 

 in August reaches the highest price of the year, being nearly double 

 that which is first registered. The average however, owing to these 

 early sales, is only 38,?. i\d. The Oxford wheat rents suggest the 

 same inferences, and point to the same course of the market, as do 

 also the averages of the Oxford market, the average of the former 

 being 42^. 9^., of the latter 40*. gd. Barley and malt are not so high. 



