d been absolutely prohibited. But the statute of
the 15th Henry VI. c. 2, reciting that "on this account, farmers and
others who use husbandry, cannot sell their corn but at a low price, to
the great damage of the realm," permits it to be sent any where but to
the king's enemies, so long as the quarter of wheat shall not exceed
6_s._ 8_d._ in value, or that of barley 3_s._

The price of wool was fixed in the thirty-second year of the same reign
at a minimum, below which no person was suffered to buy it, though he
might give more;[705] a provision neither wise nor equitable, but
obviously suggested by the same motive. Whether the rents of land were
augmented in any degree through these measures, I have not perceived;
their great rise took place in the reign of Henry VIII., or rather
afterwards.[706] The usual price of land under Edward IV. seems to have
been ten years' purchase.[707]

[Sidenote: Its condition in France and Italy.]

It may easily be presumed that an English writer can furnish very little
information as to the state of agriculture in foreign countries. In such
works relating to France as have fallen within my reach, I have found
nothing satisfactory, and cannot pretend to determine, whether the
natural tendency of mankind to ameliorate their condition had a greater
influence in promoting agriculture, or the vices inherent in the actual
order of society, and those public misfortunes to which that kingdom was
exposed, in retarding it.[708] The state of Italy was far different; the
rich Lombard plains, still more fertilized by irrigation, became a
garden, and agriculture seems to have reached the excellence which it
still retains. The constant warfare indeed of neighbouring cities is not
very favourable to industry; and upon this account we might incline to
place the greatest territorial improvement of Lombardy at an era rather
posterior to that of her republican government; but from this it
primarily sprung; and without the subjugation of the feudal aristocracy,
and that perpetual demand upon the fertility of the earth which an
increasing population of citizens produced, the valley of the Po would
not have yielded more to human labour than it had done for several
preceding centuries.[709] Though Lombardy was extremely populous in the
thirteenth and fourteenth centuries, she exported large quantities of
corn.[710] The very curious treatise of Crescentius exhibits the full
details of Italian husbandry about