OF NORFOLK. 165 



J\r O T S S. 



(a) Mr. Howlett remarks — <* Thus to fix the price of 

 " threfhing, appears extremely abfurcl ; a labourer in threfh- 

 c; ing wheat of the produce of 1793, could make better earn- 

 «' inffs at 2S. a quarter, than in threfhing that of 1792, at 

 " 2s. 6d. and of barley in 1793, at is. a quarter, than in 1792, 

 " at 1 ^d. or, perhaps, even i8d. — It would furely have been 

 " a moft ufeful information to have been told, what has been 

 " the incrcafe of the price of labour during the laft forty or 

 " fifty years, and what the advance in the price of neceffary 

 " provifions. This done, for every county, would be of the 

 •' higheft importance. This has been done for a confidera- 

 " ble part of Scotland, in Sir John Sinclair's Statifiical Ac- 

 " count, and it throws more light on the caufe of the incrcafe 

 f* of the Engliih poor rates, than any thing I have yet met 

 " with." 



I apprehend, the general incrcafe of labour, within the 

 period Mr. Ilowlctt fpeaks of, does not excead 25 per cent. — 

 but that the average price of fuch provifions, as affeft the la- 

 bourer, have increased, at leaft, 60 per cent, but this is not all, 

 for the fources of the market, which ufed to feed him, are, in 

 a great mcafure, cut off, fince the fyftem of large farms has 

 been fo much encouraged : but it may not be improper to 

 look ftill a little farther back, in order more fully to fatisfy 

 ourfelves, that the wages of the labourer in agriculture, have 

 not kept pace with the increased price of provifions — on this 

 occalion, I beg leave to recommend Bifhop Fleetwood's 

 Chronicon Preciofum, tu Mr. Hewlett's pefufal, 



®c3iott 



