not to count as
crops.

The ashes mentioned were those from wood, which were now carefully
looked after, as it had become the custom to sell them to the
soap-boilers, who came round to every farm collecting them. This is
the earliest mention in a Hawsted lease of rye-grass, clover, and
turnips, though clover and turnips had been first cultivated there
about 1700, and soon spread.

The winter of 1708-9 was very severe, a great frost lasting from
October until the spring; wheat was 81s. 9d. a quarter, and high
prices lasted until 1715.[415]

From 1715 to 1765 was an era of good seasons and low prices generally;
in that half-century Tooke says there were only five bad seasons. In
1732 prices of corn were very low, wheat being about 24s. a quarter,
so that we are not surprised to find that its cultivation often did
not pay at all.[416]

At Little Gadsden in Hertfordshire, in that year a fair season, and on
enclosed land, the following is the balance sheet for an acre:

DR. L s. d.

Rent 12 0
Dressing (manuring) 1 0 0
2-1/2 bushels of seed 7 6
Ploughing first time 6 0
" twice more 8 0
Harrowing 6
Reaping and carrying 6 6
Threshing 3 9
--------
3 4 3
========

CR. L s. d.

15 bushels of wheat (a poor crop, as
20 bushels was now about the average) 2 2 0
Straw 11 6

2 13 6
--------
_LOSS_ 10 9
========

On barley, worth about L1 a quarter, the loss was 3s. 6d. an acre; on
oats, worth 13s. a quarter, however, the profit was 21s.; on beans,
26s. 6d., these being that year exceptionally good and worth 20s. a
quarter.[417] Ellis objected to the new mode of drilling wheat
b