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 A HISTORY OF HEREFORDSHIRE Herefordshire in the 14th century was evidently a very poor county ; in the wool tax levied in 1341 it was assessed at 140 sacks, 25 stone, 13! lb., or a sack to each 3,700 acres of the modern area, the lowest assessment in England except the then poor northern counties of Cumberland, Lancashire, and part of Yorkshire.^ In 1437 there is record of an ox being sold at 'Colynton,' probably Collington, for ioj., and a horse for 13;. 4^., and at the same place, in 1496, 20 ewes fetched 8^d. each.« The ox at this time was dearer than the cow, and the breed was probably the small ox now found in Scotland and other hilly countries, the average price being about 13^. The horse sold at 'Colynton' must have been a very bad one, as the price is far below the average, a good sound animal being worth about 4 Of. Oxen were generally preferred for ploughing ; Walter of Henley quaintly says, ' a plough of oxen will go as far in the year as a plough of horses because the malice of the ploughman will not allow the plough of horses to go beyond their pace no more than the plough of oxen.' ' Also on hard ground ' where the plough of horses will stop the plough of oxen will pass.' Further, the horse cost more than the ox to keep and shoe, ' if he must be shod in all four feet, and when the horse is old and worn out there is nothing but the skin, but when the ox is old with ten pennyworth of grass he shall be fit for the larder.' Even at the end of the 1 8th century William Marshall was of much the same opinion. The county seems to have grown wealthier in the 15th century. In 1453 the commons granted 13,000 archers to Henry VI,* with the hopes of recovering the English possessions in France, for the English people were firmly persuaded that their loss impoverished England. In the assessment for this grant Herefordshire was to furnish 130 archers costing j[S9^ ^'^^- This was not very high. Norfolk was assessed at 1,012 archers costing j/^4,604 i 2j., Gloucestershire at 424 costing £i,g2g 4.S., and Salop at 192 costing ;^873 i 2j., still there were now ten counties with lower assessments than Hereford. Fifty years later came another assessment, when Henry VII, always eager to get money, levied the almost obsolete feudal aids, which a sovereign could claim, for knighting his eldest son and marrying his eldest daughter. The tax was to be paid by all persons who had above 20i. a year in 'free charter lands,' or above 26s. 8d. in copyhold lands. Cattle used for the plough, stock, and implements for household use were excluded, but farm produce, harvested corn, and stock-in-trade were rateable. The commissioners employed to assess the aid were some of the most considerable gentlemen in the county, who assessed it at ;^363 14.S. of </., or ;^i to 1,470 acres, which was the lowest assessment in England but nine. Wool during this period was always in demand, and it therefore gave a larger return than any other farm product ; English wool was famous, and the best wool in England was grown at Leo- minster. In a petition presented by the House of Commons in 1454 that certain qualities of wool should not be exported except at the prices assigned to each in the schedule annexed to the petition, probably with a view to encourage English weaving, the ' Herefordshire woUe in Lemyster ' is far higher than any other, being rated at ^^13 the sack, or ^^i the tod. The next to it in value also comes from the neighbourhood, the ' soke of Lemster,' which with that from the ' march of Shrop- shire ' is valued at ^9 ^s. ^d. a sack. Wool from ' the rest of Hereford ' was worth ^^5 6s. 8d. The lowest county on the list is Sussex, whose wool was put at ^£2 10s, only.' Towards the end of the 15th, and during the i6th century, indosures of large parts of the manor waste became frequent, partly owing to the worn-out condition of the tillage land, and partly to the high price of wool. Inclosures were very unpopular, since they sometimes occasioned evictions, and the new men, who in many places succeeded nobles impoverished by war or extravagance, screwed up the rents. Yet the inclosures were a great improvement from the standpoint of scientific agriculture, and inclosed land was worth 25 per cent, more than uninclosed. In the aggregate, however, no great quantity was inclosed, and if we may judge by the rest of England, at the end of the 17 th century half the land in the country was waste, and a great part cultivated on the old common-field system till the middle of the 18th century, for it is to Arthur Young more than any man that we owe the inclosure of wastes and the extinction of open fields. In 1 6 10 we have what is no doubt one of the first accounts of irrigation in England,^" written by a Herefordshire gentleman, Mr. Rowland Vaughan, who ' having sojourned two years in his father's house wearied in doing nothing and fearing his fortunes had been overthrown, cast about what was best to be done to preserve his reputation.' And one day he saw from a mole-hill ' Thorold Rogers, Hisi. of Agric. and Prices,, 1 10 ; a sack of wool contained 3641b. ^ At the same date ewes were selling at Wymondham at s. od.; ibid, iii, 170, and at Ramsey for s. ' Walter of Henley (Roy. Hist. See), 12. ' Thorold Rogers, Hist, of Agric. and Prices, iv, 87 ; Pari. R. (Rec. Com.), v, 232. The archers were to be paid by the county 6d. a day for six months. ' Ibid, iii, 704 ; ParJ. R. (Rec. Com.), v, 27. '° Most Approved and Long experienced Waterworks, Lond. 1 6 1 o. 408