CORDEAUX : LINCOLNSHIRE AGRICULTURE. 323 
Linseed cake, of most excellent quality, was used largely for 
fattening beasts in open yards ; some farmers using to the extent of 
100 tons a year. 
The price of all live-stock and grain varied greatly, and 
fluctuations in value were much more frequent than now. Graziers 
appear to have had a thorough knowledge of the weight and value 
of their beasts and sheep. There was less buying and selling by 
commission, men doing their own business: the tendency of the 
modern system of Auction Marts is certainly not favourable to 
individual judgment and skill, and we do not consider their general 
introduction has conduced to the farmer's profit and advantage. 
The butchers pull together, and it is the middle-man who, as a rule, 
gets rich, and the farmer poor. 
The pigs, judged by the standard of to-day, were below contempt— 
long-legged and long-nosed, high in the back, and lop-eared. 
At Louth, butter was gd., and had risen to 1s. 3d.: by an edict 
of the wise Corporation, butter which did not weigh 18 oz. to the 
pound was to be taken away. If the butter was then no better than 
much that is sold in the present day, we are not surprised at the 
worthy burgesses, failing quality, insisting on quantity. 
Prices of both stock and corn fluctuated greatly. We are told 
how Mr. Welfitt, an ancestor of the well-known sportsman, once 
stocked a close at Saltfleetby with cows bought at 19s. 6d., and 
shearling wethers at 20s. ; the sheep costing sixpence a head more 
than the cows. It would have been interesting to learn what was the 
profit on grazing in that year. 
The roads were generally bad, and much neglected. 
Farmers rode to market, conveying wife or daughter, with the 
butter and eggs, on the pillion seat behind. 
The Commissioner speaks highly of the hospitality and style of 
living of the chief farmers. This, however, was by no means 
universal, and in some districts the custom was, what we should now 
consider, very rough indeed. 
Stonehouse, in ‘The History and Topography of the Isle of 
Axholme’ (1839), says :— 
‘In the Isle, before the enclosure (this was about 100 years ago), 
farmers of the first and second class, many of them freeholders, had 
fresh meat only once or twice a week. They lived chiefly on bread, 
butter-milk, eggs, and flour puddings ; sometimes, but not constantly, 
they had malt liquor. About this time, this was generally the 
routine :—Sunday, bacon, sometimes butcher's meat ; Monday, ash- 
heap cake, with butter ina hole in the middle, and milk to drink 
with it; Tuesday, pudding made of milk, wheat flour and eggs ; 
Nov. 1895. 
