518 ON THE PRICE OF BUILDING MATERIALS. 



found fir laths once, and that is at the end of the period. 

 They are also sometimes called splints, and these too are 

 of various qualities and prices, the best being four times as 

 dear as the cheapest. Splints are generally found at Cam- 

 bridge. Laths are also called scindulae or asserculi by those 

 colleges which still kept their accounts in Latin. Sometimes 

 they are sold by the load of from 3 r to 36 bundles. In such 

 large quantities they are generally cheaper than they are by 

 the hundred. 



There is not much variation in the price of laths. The 

 entry for 1673, is from a single purchase, and would have 

 been corrected if more had been found. I conclude that, 

 except when an extensive order was given, lath-rending was 

 a bye-industry with the woodman, just as nail-making was 

 with the smith, and that therefore he could afford to sell 

 his produce cheaper than he would have done had his liveli- 

 hood depended on it. Occasionally, however, men were 

 specially engaged for this industry, as we shall see when we 

 come to deal with labour. When persons purchased under- 

 wood of from eighteen to twenty years' growth, they no doubt 

 used some of the most convenient stems for lath-rending, and 

 when timber was cut and lopped, branches which could not be 

 used for building purposes were regularly rent into oak laths 

 and splints. 



It is not at all improbable that differences of price may be 

 due to differences of size, either in breadth or length, as well 

 as to differences of quality, and that an examination of old 

 paper buildings, if any of the seventeenth century survive, 

 would reveal such differences. I need scarcely remind my 

 reader that the plaster used for these buildings was of the 

 best quality, and was invariably mixed with cow's-hair, 

 bought from the tanners at a few pence the bushel ; and 

 probably, considering that most of the cattle were very 

 coarsely bred, hair was stouter and longer than that would be 

 which is used at present. 



TIMBER AND BOARD. Timber is purchased either in the 



