RICE. SUGAR. 461 



years it is subject to strange fluctuations. In 1583 it is 

 bought at Cambridge for the Christmas feast at yd. the lb., 

 in 1589 it is procured in the same place and at the same 

 time for 2*/., the lowest price which I have found. It is 

 generally 6d. for the first twenty-five years. In 1609 Cam- 

 bridge gives 6d. t and it is bought in London for a time at 

 this rate, but in July the London price is led. From this 

 time it is once at Js. ^d. the dozen, once at 6s., and once 

 at 5^. ^d. Generally however it is at from $s. to 4^., with 

 a tendency downwards. In 1653 lt ls at 3 s - ^e dozen. There 

 is only one other entry after 1654, at $s. $d. the dozen. 



In the earlier period, high prices of rice are generally con- 

 temporaneous with high prices of currants, and probably for 

 the same cause, scanty crops, or dangers from storms or 

 piracy in the Mediterranean. Later on, the produce, though 

 I cannot give particulars, was probably more regular, and in 

 consequence the price was lowered. 



Generally, rice was purchased at Christmas only. It may 

 therefore have been used for some special dish, regularly 

 supplied at that season, as a custom or fashion. The fact 

 that the price was ordinarily uniform suggests that the dealer 

 knew and anticipated an occasional demand for it. 



SUGAR. It appears that sugar was not refined in England 

 till the end of the seventeenth century. There are generally 

 at least two marked qualities, coarse, kitchen, powder, and 

 sometimes Muscovado ; and fine or refined. I have as before 

 taken the hypothetical dozen Ibs. 



The sugar-cane was a gift of the Old World to the New. 

 It appears to be indigenous in Sicily, and to have been largely 

 cultivated in Egypt. But the conquest of Egypt was the ruin 

 of the Alexandrian sugar interest, and the produce, which 

 had been cheap at the end of the fourteenth century, is dear 

 again at the end of the sixteenth. At the end of the first 

 quarter of the seventeenth century it was planted in Bar- 

 badocs, and though for a long time Brazil was the chief 

 source of this article, by the beginning of the last quarter 



