ON THE PRICE OF STOCK AND MEAT. 333 



those destined immediately for the table are taken from the 

 few private farming accounts which I have been able to dis- 

 cover. These accounts, I am informed on the best authority, 

 are exceedingly rare, for the great public libraries have readily 

 purchased, and at high prices, all domestic accounts of the 

 seventeenth century which they have been able to come at, 

 and find their opportunities most exceptional. Very fre- 

 quently these animals were lean stock expressly purchased or 

 sold to be put into pasture in the spring, and being grass-fed, 

 to be sold in autumn. Thus in 1633, D'Ewes buys three 'old 

 cows' at 5u. %d. apiece, on May 15. Four months afterwards, 

 on September 13, he sells two of them at 78^. ^d. and 66s. &/., 

 and the third on Oct. 1 1 at 8oj. ^d. From his profit of 70^. 4^. 

 must be deducted the value of his grass, which could hardly 

 be less than 55^., or a shilling a week for each animal's feed. 

 Two years afterwards, the same country gentleman buys 

 eleven head of cattle in October and five in November, 

 mostly for stock, at an average of 57^. $d. But five of them 

 are killed for winter beef, the average weight of the carcass, 

 as D'Ewes informs us in his account, being 396^ Ibs. As the 

 five cost him 266^-. 8d., and they weighed 143 stone 5 Ibs., his 

 beef cost him under 2s. the stone of 14 Ibs. The hides however 

 would be worth about 70^. more. Beef at Cambridge was 

 this year worth 35. the stone of 14 Ibs., and beef-suet fully 4^. 

 a pound or even more. 



Cows are quoted in twenty-six years, being described as 

 fat, in milk, and dry. The average derived from the highest 

 prices in three entries is j6s. $d., one entry at Mounthall in 

 1631 being at 130^. It will be seen that the average highest 

 price of cows is little more than half the average price of 

 oxen, taken by the same standard. The cow as we know is 

 always smaller than the ox of the same herd, and it is very 

 likely that hard living in winter during the breeding and milk- 

 ing season tended still further to stunt the animal. Two 

 milch cows in 1587 are bought in November at 6os. There 

 are also a few entries of cows with calves. An average from 



