DAIRY PRODUCE, EGGS AND POULTRY. 365 



possible to account for local differences of price. For example, 

 in 1641 the Cambridge capons cost a little over 2s. id., while 

 those bought at Winchester, 22 in number, cost is. 4^d. on an 

 average. The average price of capons for the whole period, 

 the highest entries being taken, is 2s. i Id. 



I have also taken the highest prices of ' hens ' or ' pullets ' 

 from the accounts and constructed decennial averages for them. 

 These entries are more difficult of interpretation than those of 

 capons, owing to the uncertainty there is as to the growth and 

 condition of the birds. They are found for sixty years. 

 The highest price in the earlier period is a purchase made of 

 two in 1616 by the Archers, who owned Theydon Gernon, at 

 i s. gd. each, under the name of pullets. But in the four years 

 1652-5 they are quoted at Mounthall, at prices which are 

 sometimes higher than those of the Cambridge capons, under 

 the name of ' fowls/ and are possibly capons also, as the latter 

 name is not found in the Mounthall accounts. The general 

 average of the highest-priced entries is is. l\d. 



There are also numerous entries of ' chickens/ especially in the 

 early period, sixty-one years being represented. Towards the 

 latter part of the period the price of this kind of poultry is greatly 

 raised, though only on a few entries, in which this name of pro- 

 duce was probably not very clearly distinguished from that of 

 the dearer kind. The average from the sixty entries is 6d. 



There are sixty-five entries of the price of geese. These 

 favourite articles of diet among our forefathers are dis- 

 tinguished as ordinary geese, green geese, goslings, and some- 

 times as fat geese. I have omitted from my list, some 

 goslings, some geese evidently bought for stock, and otherwise 

 plainly not in condition for the table. But there are still 

 some puzzling discrepancies of price. Thus in 1592 the city 

 of Oxford buys 26 geese for its November feast, probably the 

 nth, S. Martin's Day 1 , in whose name the city church is 



' After the Gunpowder Plot many of these November feasts were kept on the 

 5th. Daring Elizabeth's life, and indeed afterwards, these feasts were often held 

 on the day of her accession, the I7th. 



