8l8 THE CONDITION OF 



dridge is nearly 43^ acres, and it is highly probable that such 

 was the ordinary holding of the husbandman in the seventeenth 

 century. On many of these holdings the occupier and his family 

 were no doubt the sole labourers, as they are on holdings of 

 this extent in Ireland at the present time, where with exorbi- 

 tant or famine rents the produce is not very greatly in excess 

 of that which was gathered in England two centuries ago, 

 prices having latterly fallen almost to the level of the seven- 

 teenth century, and in some kinds of grain considerably lower 

 than that level. 



Nor is there much difference in the price of cattle. In Lord 

 Lovell's account of 1732, out of twenty-six cattle slaughtered 

 and sold at 3^. and $s. 6d. the stone of 14 Ibs. the heaviest 

 animal is only 610 Ibs. weight, and most of them, when 

 dressed, are under 400 Ibs. The heaviest sheep weighs 65 Ibs., 

 and most are about 50 Ibs. And this is under the management 

 of a wealthy and enterprising agriculturist, thirty years after 

 the date at which these volumes close, and on land which 

 grew turnips, cole, clover, lucerne, and nonsuch or trefoil. 



The domestic life then of the seventeenth-century English 

 farmer was one in which the products of his industry, even 

 though prices were so largely enhanced, were not by themselves 

 sufficient to meet the charges of his calling, and leave him, 

 beyond a reasonable profit on his capital, the means for saving 

 and of bettering his condition. He could indeed by working 

 as hard as the labourer did, whose wages were regulated by 

 the justices in quarter sessions, get a more abundant main- 

 tenance, perhaps even a coarse plenty. When the seasons 

 were propitious, he was distressed by the proportion which his 

 rent bore to the price of that which he had to sell. If the 

 seasons were unfruitful, he was straitened by the scantiness 

 of his produce. And above all, he was discouraged from 

 venturing on improving his holding by the risk of having his rent 

 increased, by the agent informing the landlord that ' he could 

 bear to be raised,' and by being made to pay toll on the fer- 

 tility which he had himself induced on the soil. Under such 



