MINOR AGRICULTURAL PRODUCTS, 319 



home supply of materials for homespun, a bye industry practised 

 almost universally up to two or three generations ago. But 

 besides the product of their own cultivation, householders 

 often bought raw hemp and flax, tow and yarn for homespun. 

 Hemp is bought by the stone, the pound, and the cwt. ; and 

 considerable purchases by the latter weight are made for navy 

 stores at Chatham and Deptford. The stone I am persuaded 

 is the clove of seven Ibs. Six entries by the stone give an 

 average of 2s. 5</., five by the pound one of $\d. ; seven by 

 the hundred-weight, this entry being always of Russian hemp, 

 are at an average of 2os. $\d. 



Flax is once bought by the hundred-weight, six times by 

 the stone, and on every other occasion by the pound. The 

 single entry by the cwt. in 1587 is at 30^. 8d. The average by 

 the stone is 6s. id. The average of nineteen entries by the 

 pound is <)\d. Tow, which is only found in the earlier part 

 of the time, and was used to make coarse fabrics, is 4\d. a Ib. 

 on an average of ten entries. Two entries of flax-yarn give 

 an average of i s. <)d. a Ib. ; three of tow-yarn, one of %\d. ; two 

 of woollen-yarn, an average of 2s. ^d. a pound. 



HONEY. I have registered twenty entries of the price of 

 this article by the gallon, two by the pot (which is plainly a 

 quart), one by the pound, and four by the hundred-weight. 

 Bees I believe were very generally kept by cottagers and 

 others (there are several entries of beehives in my collection 

 of sundry articles), and indeed considering how dear other 

 sugar was, nothing could have kept the price of this sugar so 

 low but the very general custom of bee-keeping. The highest 

 price by the gallon is that of a London purchase in 1689, 

 where the charge is 13^. ^d. ; the lowest one in 1592, at 

 Worksop, for 3*. 4^. But almost all the other entries are very 

 close to the average, $s. 4\d. The entry by the pound in 1681 

 is at $d. During the four years 1692-5 Houghton gives a 

 London price by the cwt., 54^. ;]</., which, considering that it 

 was in the scarcity septennate, fairly corresponds to the price 

 by the pound. 



