240 HISTORY OF AGRICULTURE 



prices were due to the war. 1 They were due, indeed, to 

 several causes : 



1 . Frequent years of scarcity. 



2. Increase of consumption, owing to the great growth of 

 the manufacturing population, England during the war having 

 almost a monopoly of the trade of Europe. 



3. Napoleon's obstructions to importation. 



4. The unprecedented fall of foreign exchanges. 



5. The rise in the price of labour, scanty as it was. 



6. Suspension of cash payments, which produced a medium 

 of circulation of an unlimited nature, and led to speculation. 2 



In March, 1801, wheat was i$6s. ; beef at Smithfield, $s. to 

 6s. 6d. a stone ; and mutton, 6s. 6d. to 8s. A rise in wages 

 was allowed on all sides to be imperative, but the labourer 

 even now got on an average little more than qs. a week, 3 

 a very inadequate pittance, though generally supplemented 

 by the parish. Arthur Young 4 tells of a person living near 

 Bury in 1801, who, before the era of high prices, earned 

 $s. a week, and with that could purchase : 



A bushel of wheat. 



,, malt. 

 I Ib. of butter. 

 i Ib. of cheese. 

 A pennyworth of tobacco. 



1 Tooke, History of Prices, p. 219. 



2 Farmer's Magazine, 1817, p. 60. 



s Thorold Rogers, Work &nd Wages, c. 18. 



4 Annals of Agriculture, xxxvii. 265. In 1805, in Herefordshire, the 

 labourer waj getting about 6s. 6d. a week. See Duncumb, General View 

 of Agriculture of Herefordshire. Those who lived in the farm-house 

 often fared best: in 1808 the diet of a Hampshire farm servant was, for 

 breakfast, bacon, bread, and skim milk ; for lunch, bread and cheese and 

 small beer ; for dinner, between 3 p.m. and 4 p.m., pickled pork or bacon 

 with potatoes, cabbages, turnips, or greens, and broths of wheat-flour and 

 garden stuff. Supper consisted of bread and cheese and a pint of ale. 

 His bread was usually made of wheat, which, considering the price, is 

 remarkable. On Sundays he had fresh meat. The farmers lived in many 

 cases little better; a statement which must be compared with others 

 ascribing great extravagance to them. Vancouver, General View of the 

 Agriculture of Hants (1808), p. 383. 



