362 DAIRY PRODUCE, EGGS AND POULTRY. 



Milk is only found seven times: once in London in 1593, 

 when it is 6d. and $d. the gallon ; once in Theydon Gernon, 

 at $d. ; and the residue of the purchases are made by New 

 College, Oxford, in 1643, 1644 and 1645, when the College 

 gives 6d. a gallon, again in 1649, when it gives 5<^., and lastly 

 in 1641, when it is ^d. The price seems strangely high, but 

 the record is worth preserving, as it seems to prove, either 

 that persons kept cows and that these were only exceptional 

 purchases, or that the use of milk as an article of diet or 

 cookery was rare. 



CHEESE. Entries of the price of cheese are very scanty 

 in the early part of the period, but become more abundant 

 towards its close. It is found in forty-four years. I conclude 

 that it was rarely used by corporations and private families. 

 The first entry is in 1593 m London. 



The origin of the article is occasionally designated. I find 

 Gloucester, Essex, Holland, Cheshire, Suffolk, and Weyhill, 

 i.e. probably Wiltshire cheese. Besides these, D'Ewes buys, 

 morning milk cheese in 1636 and 1637, giving a fair price for 

 it, though not nearly so much as he does for some other 

 kinds, the origin of which he does not designate. 



In 1643 and 1644, New College, Oxford, makes large pur- 

 chases of cheese along with other provisions against the siege 

 of the city, 7 \ cwts. in the first and 7 cwts. in the second year. 

 But when the siege was over in 1645-6, it sells a large 

 quantity, over four cwts. of its stock, and apparently at lower 

 prices than it gave. 



In 1680, a custom commences at New College, Oxford, of 

 buying cheese for the bursar's table in the treasury, and the 

 custom is continued, in so far as the College records have been 

 preserved, till the end of the period. In these accounts, the 

 number of the cheeses, the weight of each, and the price of 

 each by the pound, is given. The greatest weight is 67 Ibs., 

 the least is io| Ibs. Sometimes the price varies within the 

 year, sometimes it is uniform. The highest rate at which it 

 is bought is in 1685, when ten cheeses weighing from 45 to 



