CHAPTER IX. 



ON THE PRICES OF HAY AND STRAW. 



DURING the whole period before me, one year only 

 fails to supply a price of hay, while the record of the price of 

 straw is unbroken. Hay is purchased extensively for the 

 stables at Cambridge, Oxford, and Eton, and was no doubt 

 cut in the extensive meadows near these localities. 



Hay is generally sold as before by the load, by which 

 as before is meant a fother of nineteen and a-half cwts., and 

 is, as I conclude from the places generally furnishing the 

 evidence, of exceptionally good quality. But there are other 

 measures used, which are sometimes not a little puzzling. 

 The cwt. and its subdivision, the tod, are the commonest 

 of these exceptional measures, the price in these smaller 

 measures being generally much higher than that by the larger. 

 This indeed might be expected, and the more so because in 

 these quantities it is likely that the best of the stack was 

 being sold. The earliest entry of the sale of hay by the cwt. 

 is in 1593 at Eton, but it is common at Cambridge. On this 

 first occasion hay by the cwt. is cheaper than by the load. 



But it is not easy to guess what was the stone at Worksop 

 in 1598. In this year hay is not dear at Oxford, but no con- 

 ceivable or known weight of a stone, elastic as this word is, 

 could account for the price here. It must be some local 

 measure, the meaning of which I have been unable to trace. 



On some occasions we are told what relation certain less 

 frequent quantities bear to the commoner unit. Thus in 1625, 



