A HISTORY OF LANCASHIRE 



beans 13/., and oatmeal 14^. a windle of 220 lb., the latter being « so ordinary that wheat bread is 

 most used.' Three years afterwards a great crop of corn brought the prices down to lox. per wmdle 

 for wheat, 4s. 6d. for barley, and 31. 4^. for oats, while potatoes were 21. 6d. a load. The crop was 

 so great that 33,000 windles of imported corn in Liverpool were unsaleable. 



In 1732, after a long drought, farmers dreading to winter their cattle with short food supplies 

 were killing them to avoid the risk, so that beef was selling in Lancashire at ij«/. per lb. for the 

 best joints." 



In 1740 occurred the great frost that was felt all over Europe ; in Lancashire much of the 

 wheat was killed in the ground, and the coldness of the spring made the oats and barley fiail, so 

 that prices advanced : wheat to 20f., barley to 125., oats to "js. and beans to i6j. a windle. Hay 

 and straw were scarce, hay 6d. a stone, wheat straw loa., oat straw lod., and beef was again 

 I \d. per lb. ; cheese 30J. a cwt., butter i)d. a lb. 



In 1725 we have another record of wages paid in the county, the magistrates meeting at 

 Manchester when ' certain discreet and grave men of the county ' determined on the rates of 

 wages and issued them. They show a considerable increase on those of 130 years before, 

 and are interesting, as the great industrial development of the eighteenth century had not yet 

 come to pass. 



The best husbandry labourer " was to receive from March to September \s. a day, ordinary 

 ones I0i^.,and during the other six months the payment was to be lod. and ()d. Haymakers were only 

 to receive the same as the ordinary labourer, lod., mowers had is. 2,d. and reapers n., the last 

 named sum being the maximum wage of artisans. The maintenance of labourers was put at 3;. a 

 week. For making a ditch 4 ft. wide at the top, 1 8 in. wide at the bottom and 3 ft. deep, double 

 set with quicks, setting a hedge upon it, is. a rood of 8 yards, and lod. a rood if without quick, was 

 the price. For threshing and winnowing oats by piece work i;. a quarter was the rate, for barley, 

 beans, and peas is. bd., for wheat and rye 2s. 



The magistrates in their proclamation remarked on the plenty of the times, and were afraid 

 the wages were a little too liberal for the northern part of the county, but the labourer can hardly 

 have shared this complacent optimism, since wheat was higher than it had been for thirteen years, 

 461. id. per quarter, malt was 24^. and oatmeal 54^.; and considering these prices with the 

 wages, a labourer by twelve months' work in 1725 could not have earned as much as he did by 

 fifteen weeks work in 1495.^' This rate of payment was not to be exceeded in the county, and was 

 to be proclaimed in every market town by the sheriff; it was enforced by penalties laid down by 

 previous statutes going back to 2 and 3 Edward VI, cap. 15, by which a combination of 

 workmen, which the magistrates seem to have feared, was punished by various penalties rising at the 

 third offence to a fine of ^^40,'' the pillory, loss of one ear, and 'judicial infamy.' 



Arthur Young made his northern tour of England in 1770," and gives an exhaustive and 

 interesting account of agriculture at that date in various parts of Lancashire. 'Around Garstanp,' 

 he says, ' the soils are clay, black moory, on clay and light loam, let on an average at I "js. an acre.'^ 

 Farm rents were from ;^iO to ;^I50 a year, and the course of cropping most usual was (i) fallow ; 

 (2) wheat; (3) beans; (4) barley; (5) oats. They ploughed thrice for wheat, sowing three bushels a 

 fortnight before Michaelmas, the average crop being the excellent one of thirty-five bushels per acre. 

 For barley ' they stir from one to four times,' sowing three bushels per acre towards the end of 

 April, and the return was thirty bushels per acre. For oats they ploughed ' but once,' sowing seven 

 bushels an acre in March, and getting a crop of fifty-five bushels on an average. For beans they ' stir 

 but once,' sowing four and a half bushels broadcast, and never hoeing them, with a resulting crop of 

 thirty bushels per acre. In this district neither pease nor rye were grown, and ' scarce any turneps.' 

 Clover was sown with barley and oats, and generally mown for hay. For potatoes they dug all the 

 land 9 in. deep and then manured it well with dung, and dibbled in the setts 9 in. apart, a peck 

 setting a perch of 21 ft. They were hand weeded, and produced on an average 450 bushels per 

 acre, corn of all sorts being sown after them and producing great crops. The principal manure 

 used was marl, at an average expense of j^4 per acre. 



Lime was also in use, spread at the rate of from fifty to a hundred ' windles ' per acre, at a cost 

 of i^. ^d. per windle, and this dressing lasted four or five years ' in great heart,' though with very 

 good management it would last as long as twenty years. 



Both marl and lime were used for the pastures, which let at from 30J. to 3 55. per acre ; an acre 

 and a quarter was reckoned as the summer keep of a cow, and four sheep were run to the acre. The 



" Autobiography ofWm. Stout (edited from original MS. by J. Harland), 121. 



'• In 1704 a cowman hired from 7 Feb. to Christmas was to have 52/. 6d. (BlundeWs Diary, 19.) 

 " Thorold Rogers, Six Centuries of Work and Wages, 398 ; Eden, State of the Poor, iii, p. cvii. 

 " How was the labourer at lod. or i/. a day to pay a fine of ^40 I 

 '' Young, Northern Tour{znd. ed.), iii, 157 et seq. 



" The average rent of land in England about this time Young puts at i os. an acre. 



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