44 HISTORY OF AGRICULTURE 



not by the day, and that none pay in the time of sarcling 

 (weeding) or hay-making but a penny a day, and a mower of 

 meadows for the acre ^d., or by the day 5^., and reapers of corn 

 in the first week of August 2d., and the second 3<^., without 

 meat or drink.' And none were to take for the threshing of 

 a quarter of wheat or rye more than %d., and for the quarter 

 of beans, peas, and oats more than id. These prices are 

 certainly difficult to understand. Hay-making has usually 

 been paid for at a rate above the ordinary, because of the 

 longer hours ; and here we find the price fixed at half the 

 usual wages, while mowing is five times as much, and double 

 the price paid for reaping, though they were normally about 

 the same price.^ 



It is interesting to learn from the statute that there was a 

 considerable migration of labourers at this date for the harvest, 

 from Stafford, Lancaster, Derby, Craven, the Marches of 

 Wales and Scotland, and other places. 



Such was the first attempt made to control the labourers' 

 wages by the legislature, and like other legislation of the kind 

 it failed in its object, though the attempt was honestly made ; 

 and if the rate of wages fixed was somewhat low, its inequity 

 was far surpassed by the exorbitance of the labourers' de- 

 mands.^ It was an endeavour to set aside economic laws, and 

 its futility was rendered more certain by the depreciation of 

 the coinage in 1351, which led to an advance in prices, and 

 compelled the labourers to persevere in their demands for 

 higher wages. ^ 



Both wages and prices, except those of grain, continued to 



^ See Appendix I. 



^ Putnam, op. cit. 221. The statute for the first ten years, however, 

 kept wages from ascending as high as might have been the case. 



* M'^Pherson, Annals of Co77tnierce, i. 543, says that as the plague 

 diminished the number of employers as well as labourers, the demand for 

 labour could not have been much greater than before, and would have had 

 little effect on the rate of wages if Edward III had not debased the 

 coinage. But if the owners did decrease the lands would only accumulate 

 in fewer hands, and would still require cultivation. 



