Agricultural Statistics 150 



and pulse, when a Michaelmas taxation was ordered 

 to be made on all the goods in the house and 

 fields ; taking the oxen alone (on the 1 20 acre 

 theory), there would be some 15,000 acres tillage, 

 and if but 8,000 of them had been sown, a return 

 of 5 bush. p. acre : as some | of the crop was 

 oats, 4 (of 5) bush, would have to be kept for 

 seed, nor is it very unlikely that some of the 

 horses were joined in the plough, which would 

 further increase the area and lessen the yield per 

 acre. There were but 370 qrs. (say ^ s of sown 

 crops) of wheat (frumentum), 465 qrs. rye (siligo),* 

 and IO2| qrs. of barley, which if all malted would 

 but yield about 1 8 gallons p. annum per record 

 man, and makes out but poorly in comparison 

 with Prof. Maitland's 2^ gallons per day for 

 same : in conclusion it may well be allowed that 

 the tax-payers would probably better conceal their 

 corn than live stock, but scarcely to the enormous 

 extent needful for the above supposition. 



In the E. H. R. (V. 9, pp. 417-439) Prof. 

 Maitland has very handsomely recorded the results 

 of a search in divers records relating to the Manor 

 of Wilburton, with a result of perhaps the best Manor of 



^i iv/ij- I_L A i / Wilburton. 



article on Mediasvalj Agriculture extant (at any 

 rate known to the writer) : this paper alone would 

 prove the unreality of the 120 acre theory, and as 



* The accomplished editor (Wm. Brown, B.A.) turns the 

 rye into wheat, and then explains the absence of the former : 

 the point is not what a word may sometimes mean, but what 

 it represents in a particular record, taking into consideration 

 the sense and date. 



t Walt, de Whytleseye's Hist, containing extents of over a 

 score of Manors, discovers their structure far more lucidly 

 than the usual modern explication. 



II 



