230 History of the English Landed Interest. 



a quarter per acre, and that the yield of wheat in quarters, 

 the national census, and the people's wheat requirements, are 

 all three totals expressed by the same figures, viz. Sj millions.^ 

 This, however, is a computation greatly in excess of what 

 this author intended, as in another paragraph he implies that 

 the then population was less than 2| millions; so that if we 

 take the wheat-yielding area of England and Wales at this 

 present time, viz. about one million acres less than when 

 Rogers wTote his history, we shall be nearer the author's 

 meaning. 



Thus, after a bad thirteenth-century harvest, without any 

 foreign trade to fall back upon, it is quite easy to imagine that 

 the total wheat-growing area of English soil at this time would 

 barely yield sufficient breadstuffs to keep alive the population 

 who depended upon it for subsistence. On the other hand, the 

 rank and file of the rural villeinage possessed no live stock of 

 their own, and were too poor to buy meat. Cattle and sheep 

 were bred in large quantities by the richer farmers for other 

 objects than the butcher's knife. In proportion therefore to 

 corn, a large quantity of meat would find its way into the public 

 markets, where the urban population would readily buy it. 



But the farm produce of greatest importance was sheepskins, 

 for the sake of both their wool and leather, so that, next to 

 labour, there was nothing the landed proprietor looked more 

 sharply after. The king was no less active in recognising a 

 source of revenue in these commodities, and the law stepped 

 in from time to time to protect the produce from royal rapacity. 

 The principle of the staple (as its German derivation " stapulen " 

 signifies) was to gather or heap together in one market or port 

 the most prominent of the national exports, with a view to 

 fiscal duties. These were times when, as we have shown, the 

 king's rights to control mercantile dealings were undisputed. 

 The confinement for a time of local trade to one place was 

 neither unconstitutional nor unusual ; and kings frequently 



' Contrasting these figures with modern statistics, we find that the yield 

 of wheat per acre now is some 28 to JM bushels, and that tlie wants of the 

 population, including a partial consumption by live stock, are estimated at 

 5i bushels to the individual. 



