GREAT RISE IN PRICES 117 



three small holdings letting for 6s. 8d. an acre ; and some of 

 the pasture land was let at I4s., 15^. 6d., and even i8.r. an acre. 

 The largest farm, Saundby Hall, of 607 acres, nearly all 

 meadow and pasture, was 9^. io*/. an acre. The cottages 

 were fortunate in having pieces of land attached to them. In 

 Saundby, Richard Ffydall rented a cottage and 2 acres of 

 arable land for 1 13.?. ^d. ; Widow Johnson a cottage and 

 yard for 13^. 4</. ; William Daubney a cottage with 6^ acres 

 of arable and 5| acres of pasture for 7 iSs. 6d. A farm in 

 Scrooby, consisting of a messuage, cottage, and 113 acres of 

 arable, meadow, and pasture, only let at 23. 



As to the freehold value of land, in 1621, according to 

 D'Ewes, it was worth from sixteen to twenty years' purchase ; 

 yet, in 1688, Sir Josiah Child said that lands now sell at twenty 

 years' purchase, which fifty or sixty years before sold at eight 

 or ten ; and he also states, ' the same farms or lands to be now 

 sold would yield treble and in some cases six times the money 

 they were sold for fifty years ago'. 1 Davenant puts land at 

 twelve years' purchase in 1600, at eighteen years in i688. 2 

 In 1729 the price of land was said to be twenty-seven years' 

 purchase. 3 



The legislation against laying down tillage to grass was 

 continued until the end of the sixteenth century. The statute 

 39 Eliz., c. i, repealed 4 Hen. VII, c. 19, and all other Acts 

 against pulling down houses, and provided that a house of 

 husbandry should be a house that hath or hath had 20 acres 

 of arable land. All such houses which had been destroyed 

 during the last seven years were to be rebuilt, and if destroyed 

 more than seven years only one-half was to be rebuilt ; but 

 to each of them at least 40 acres of land were to be attached. 



1 M c Pherson, Annals of Commerce, ii. 483. 



2 Ibid. ii. 630. 



3 Ibid. iii. 147. The rental of the lands in England in 1600 was 

 estimated by Davenant at ,6,000,000, in 1688 at 14,000,000; and 

 in 1726 by Phillips at ,20,000,000. Ibid. iii. 133- In 1850, Caird 

 estimated it at .37,412,000. 



