522 ON THE PRICE OF BUILDING MATERIALS. 



below I have taken, as far as I could find, oak boards only. 

 But it is possible that beech might have been used at Basing- 

 stoke, elm at Oxford, and ash in certain localities ; for beech 

 thrives on chalk soils, elm in low-lying ground, and beech was 

 largely used by turners. 



Board is found very regularly, or as least sufficiently for all 

 purposes, for the first eighty years, at first for nearly every 

 year, and latterly with some few omissions. For the last 

 forty, entries are scanty, and for one decade are wholly 

 absent. But I have no doubt that the entries represent prices 

 with accuracy, and that the rise in cost is fully and truly 

 exhibited. Of course the principal cause of the rise is the 

 cost of labour. At the beginning of the period, the cost of 

 sawing 100 feet is about is. 4^., at the end it has risen from 

 2s. 6d. to 3^., and every operation needed to put timber into 

 board had been similarly enhanced in price. Up to 1642, 

 after which the rise is marked, the average price is 8s. $d. 

 the hundred square feet, during the remainder of the period 

 it is 14*. 6\d. Similarly for the first sixty years, the average 

 price of a ton or load of timber is 19^. lod. ; in the next sixty, 

 335-. z\d. Now the rise in the case of board is from unity to 

 1-762, in that of timber from unity to 1-672 ; and though there 

 was an equivalent rise in the woodman's wages, there was, as 

 distributed over the sawn timber, a relatively greater cost 

 of labour in the case of sawn timber, a rise which, if the 

 relative value of the unit in timber and the unit in board is 

 taken, will be found to closely correspond, some addition 

 being made to the general rise in all articles when one in- 

 terprets the increase in the sawyer's wages. In the last half 

 the relation of a load of timber to a hundred of board is that 

 of 2-287 to unity, in the first period 2-404 to one. This also 

 implies that in the price of board increasing cost is due to 

 increased wages. 



Entries of plank are rarer than those of board. The latter 

 is an inch in thickness, the former a good deal thicker though 

 very variously, the price not increasing in exact numerical 



