260 ON THE PRICE OF GRAIN. 



fourth volume, from 1541 to 1582, it was 8s. $%d. Now my 

 prices of barley, though pretty regular for the first eighty 

 years, are exceedingly deficient for the last forty. Still the 

 ratio which I find between barley and malt is so close and so 

 natural, that I am confident that vis. is practically an 

 accurate price for the average of the hundred and twenty years, 

 and 21 s. ii^d. for the hundred years. 



The average price of malt, of which there is an unbroken 

 record, is ils. y\d. for the whole period, Z'js. 1\d. for the 

 hundred years, and iSs. $d. for the first twenty. It will be 

 remembered that my malt prices are generally of the best 

 quality, those which, being taken for corn rents, were the 

 highest in the market. Now the difference between the barley 

 and malt averages is from is. 8-fa?. to is. %d. a quarter 1 . This 

 we shall find hereafter is less than the difference on an average 

 between Houghton's barley and malt prices, the entries in his 

 register being abundant for both. In the forty-two years 

 1541-1582 the difference between malt and barley is nearly 

 2s. in favour of the former. 



Now it is not a little remarkable that the highest price of 

 malt during the whole 120 years is in 1596, when it stands at 

 36.$-. io\d. The next is in 1637, which is not an excessively 

 dear year for wheat, at 365. i\d., a rate reduced by D'Ewes' 

 accounts, for otherwise it would have been 41$. $\d. Barley 

 is also excessively dear this year, 38^. 6\d. In the dearth of 

 1630 it is 35^. id., barley being again dearer than malt, 

 38^. \\d. During the three years of famine, 1647-9, ^ * s 

 again very dear, 35^. o\d., 35^. 6d., and 34^. lid., barley being 

 39.$-. id., 4is. 7i*/., and 34^. Sd. In 1661 it is 33^. 6d., in 1662 

 30^. 3f^., in 1698 345. old., and in 1699 31 s. i\d., in which 

 latter year barley is at 30^. These are the only years in 

 which it reaches 30^. and upwards. 



I seem to trace that high prices of barley and malt are 



1 In 1634, D'Ewes makes the following note in his account book : ' 60 comb* (30 

 quarters) 'of barley cost me 30 lor., malting it 3, and was increased in the 

 whole unto 70 comb.' 



