THE PROBLEM OF AGRICULTURAL ECONOMICS 41 



Cattle were seldom fatted even for the tables of the rich; oxen 

 were valued for their power of draught, cows for their milk. It may, 

 indeed, be said that fresh butcher's meat was rarely eaten, and that, 

 if it was, it was almost universally grass-fed. No winter-keep or 

 feeding stuff was available; not even carrots or parsnips were known. 

 The commons, generally unstinted, carried as much stock as could 

 keep skin and bone together in the winter, and the lord could not only 

 turn on them his own sheep and cattle, but license strangers for money 

 payments to do the same. Even if the commons were stinted, the 

 margin was too bare to mean abundance. The best pastures were 

 either in the lord's own hands, and were saved by him at the expense 

 of the commons, or were let out to individuals in separate occupations. 

 Even among these superior feeding-grounds, there were few enclosures 

 which would fatten a bullock. At the wane of the summer the cattle 

 had the aftermath of the hay meadows, and the stubble and haulm 

 of the arable lands. During this season they were at their best. 

 They only survived the winter months in a state of semi-starvation 

 on hay, straw, and tree-loppings. It was, therefore, the practice at 

 the end of June to draft the aged cows, worn-out oxen, and toothless 

 sheep, or "crones," prepare them as far as possible for the butcher, 

 slaughter them in the autumn, and either eat them fresh or throw 

 them into the powdering tub to be salted for winter consumption. , 



The dairy produce was a greater source of money revenue, though 

 the home consumption of cheese must have been very large. But the 

 management was necessarily controlled, like the management of the 

 stock, by the winter scarcity. The yield of a cow during the twenty- 

 four weeks from the middle of April to Michaelmas was estimated at 

 four-fifths of her total annual yield. 



Sheep were the sheet anchor of farming. But it was not for their 

 mutton, or for their milk, or even for their skins, that they were 

 chiefly valued. Already the mediaeval agriculturist took his seat on 

 the wool-sack. As a marketable commodity, both at home and 

 abroad, English long wool always commanded a price. It was less 

 perishable than corn, and more easily transported even on the worst 

 of roads. From Martinmas to Easter sheep were kept in houses, or 

 in movable folds of wooden hurdles, thatched at the sides and tops. 

 During these months they were fed on coarse hay or peas-haulm, mixed 

 with wheaten or oaten straw. For the rest of the year they browsed on 

 the land for fallows, in woodland pastures, or on the sheep-commons. 

 Diseases made sheep-farming, in spite of its profits, a risky venture. 



