STATE OP ENGLAND IN 1685 .

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misgivings, the guidance of those writers on statistics whose cilap.reputation for diligence and fidelity stands highest. At pre- —sent an average crop of wheat, rye, barley, oats, and beahs, issupposed considerably to exceed thirty millions of quarters.

The crop of wheat would be thought wretched if it did not Ex-ceed twelve millions of quarters. According to the compu-tation made in the year 1096 by Gregory King, the whole quan-tity of wheat, rye, barley, oats, and beans, then annually grownin the kingdom, was somewhat less than ten millions ofquarters. The wheat, which was then cultivated only on thestrongest clay, and consumed only by those who were in easycircumstances, he estimated at less than two millions Ofquarters. Charles Davenant, an acute and well ittformddthough most unprincipled and rancorous politician, differedfrom King as to some of the items of the account, but cam6 tonearly the same general conclusions. *

The rotation of crops was very imperfectly understood.

It was known, indeed, that some vegetables lately introducedinto our island, particularly the turnip, afforded excellentnutriment in winter to sheep and oxen: but it was not yet thepractice to feed cattle in this manner. It was therefore by nomeans easy to keep them alive during the season when thegrass is scanty. They were killed and salted in great numbersat the beginning of the cold weather; and, during severalmonths, even the gentry tasted scarcely any fresh animal food,except game and river fish, which were consequently muchmore important articles in housekeeping than at present. Itappears from the Northumberland Household Book that, in thereign of Henry the Seventh, fresh meat was never eaten evenby the gentlemen attendant on a great Earl, except during theshort interval between Midsummer and Michaelmas. But inthe course of two centuries an improvement had taken place;

* King’s Natural and Political Conclusions. Davenant on the Balanceof Trade.