240 ON THE PRICE OF GRAIN. 



contains the markets north of the Trent, and will include 

 Liverpool. According to the rule laid down in this analysis, 

 out of the four statutable corporations in which corn rents 

 were to be established by Act of Parliament, Oxford and Eton 

 would be in the Home division, Cambridge in the East, and 

 Winchester in the South. 



Speaking generally, prices are highest in the Home division, 

 that is, the parts of England through which the water-way 

 of the Thames and its affluents passes. Next comes the 

 Southern district below the Thames, from Rochester to Exeter. 

 Then come the Eastern Counties, in which grain was cheaper 

 than elsewhere to the days of Arthur Young 1 . Next the 

 South-west, i. e. the ports from Falmouth to Pembroke and the 

 basins of the Severn and the Wye. The Midland Counties come 

 next, and as a rule, at least in wheat prices, the markets north 

 of the Trent are the cheapest of all. To the last fact there is a 

 notable exception. There is frequently a special scarcity, not 

 of all kinds of grain, but of the principal, at Appleby. The ex- 

 treme severity of this scarcity makes it impossible to incorpo- 

 rate the Appleby average with the general Northern average. 



Within the period contained in Houghton's averages are 

 those seven years of scarcity which are frequently commented 

 on by writers posterior to the period, probably because they 

 were in such marked contrast with the low prices which prevailed 

 during the first half of the eighteenth century. By these seven 

 years were meant those from 1692 to 1698 inclusive, though in 

 one of these years, 1694-5, the price of wheat was by no means 

 excessive. Of these years the worst was 1693-4, and the next 

 1697-8. But I will now proceed with the particulars of each 

 year. 



1691-2. The returns are only for little more than a quarter of the 

 year, the third, and a little of the fourth quarter. But this portion 

 comprises the most critical part of the agricultural year. The earlier 

 portion of it gives the estimate, local or general, of the harvest 

 gathered in the previous autumn. The latter is affected by antici- 

 1 Political Arithmetic, p. 337-. 



