WALTER OF HENLEY ^^ 



ploughings, except lands which are sown yearly ; and that each 

 ploughing is worth 6d. and the harrowing id., and on the acre 

 it is necessary to sow at least two bushels. Now two bushels 

 at Michaelmas are worth at least i2d., and weeding ^d., and 

 reaping ^d., and carrying in August id., and the straw will pay 

 for the threshing.' 



The return was wretched : * at three times your sowing 

 you ought to have 6 bushels, worth 3^.' The total cost is thus 

 3J. i^d. ; and without debiting anything for rent and manure, 

 the loss would be i^d. an acre. 



The anonymous Treatise on Husbandry of about the same 

 date says, however, that ' wheat ought to yield to the fifth grain, 

 oats to the fourth, barley to the eighth, beans and peas to the 

 sixth. '^ In the years 1243-8 the average yield of wheat at 

 Combe, Oxfordshire, was 5 bushels per acre, of barley a little 

 over 5, oats 7. In the Manor of Forncett, in various years 

 from 1390 to 1306, wheat yielded about 10 bushels, oats 

 from II to 16, barley i5, and peas from 4 to 13 bushels 

 per acre.^ 



As for the dairy, 3 cows, says Walter, should yield a wey, 

 (3 cwt.) of cheese annually, and half a gallon of butter a week, 

 ' if sorted out and fed in pasture of salt marsh; ' but ' in pasture 

 of wood or in meadows after mowing, or in stubble, it should 

 take 3 cows for the same.* Twenty ewes, which it was then 

 the custom to milk, fed in pasture of salt marsh, ought to yield 

 the same as the 3 cows. A gallon of butter was worth 6d., 

 and weighed 7 lb. And the anonymous treatise says each 

 cow ought to yield from the day after Michaelmas until the first 

 kalends of May, twenty-eight weeks, lod. more or less ; and 

 from the first kalends of May till Michaelmas, twenty-four 

 weeks, the milk of a cow should be worth 3^. 6d. ; and she 

 should give also 6 stones (14 lb. per stone) of cheese, and ' as 



^ Walter of Henley, Royal Historical Society, p. 71. 



* Davenport, A Norfolk Manor ^ pp. 29 et seq. See also Hall, Pipe Roll 

 of the Bishopric of Winchester, p. xxvi, which gives an average yield of 

 wheat over a large area in 1298-9 at 4-3 bushels per acre. 



CURTLER J3 



