332 ON THE PRICE OF STOCK AND MEAT. 



Towstock, which is probably the modern Tostock in Suffolk, 

 the prices ranging from 166.9. &/. to 133^. 4d. Now I am 

 able to state that the price of beef in this neighbourhood was 

 in this year and at the same period of time at which these 

 sales were effected at from \\d. to id. a pound. Hence if 

 we take the highest of these prices, and assuming that the 

 live weight of the animal, pound for pound, did not differ 

 materially in value from the dead weight pound, the weight 

 of the highest priced ox in the Towstock sale could have 

 been but little less than 1000 Ibs., while if the live weight is 

 to be put at a lower figure per pound, the weight will be pro- 

 portionately increased. Again, in 1642 at Hickstead, a place 

 the locality of which I have not yet identified, eight fat oxen 

 are sold at 11 a piece, one at the enormous price of 21, 

 and three others at 10 6s. 8d. each. Now at this time beef 

 was at 2,4s. the cwt., and the largest of these animals, if there 

 be not as I greatly suspect some error in the original account, 

 must have been fully up to the weight of the largest modern 

 stock. 



Hitherto I have referred to oxen for the table only. But 

 many other kinds are mentioned, though not so variously or 

 so plentifully as in earlier periods of this history. Of these 

 the most significant are those purchased or sold for plough or 

 draught. Of these there are fifteen entries, ranging in price 

 from 300.5-. the yoke to 2,24*. 6d., the notices being between 

 1584 and 1642, and the average being 151$. $d. the yoke. 

 Other names are cows, bulls, stirks, bull and ox stirks, steers, 

 beasts, kine, bullocks, heifers, twynters, barrens, beeves, 

 country steers, runts, yearlings, cows in calf and with calf, 

 and milch cows. 



There seems to be some sign that the breed of cattle was 

 being improved, for some bulls, these animals having been 

 generally low-priced, are now occasionally dear. I have found 

 one at i2Os. in 1616, another at 167^. 6d. in 1645, and one at 

 zoos, in 1678. The average of twenty entries is 73^. *]d. 



The whole of these entries of other kinds of cattle beyond 



