ommunication, or exchange of commodities, between our country and
another; suppose that the people of this island depended entirely on
their own harvests and their own cattle for their support. You would
then easily understand how a single bad year might produce scarcity of
food, and a very bad year might produce a famine. That was our condition
down to the fifteenth century. Some corn may have been brought over from
Prussia or from Hamburg; but there was no regular supply; the country
depended on its own harvests. Therefore, the fear of a famine--or of
scarcity--was ever present to the people.

Many of these famines are on record. In the year 990 a famine raged over
the whole of England; in 1126 there was a terrible scarcity. Wheat was
sold at 6_s._ a horseload. Now, in the twelfth century a shilling meant
more than a pound of our money, in purchasing power. It is not stated
how much constituted a horseload. It would probably mean the filling of
the two baskets hanging on either side of the packhorse. In 1257, after
a wet season and a bad harvest, wheat rose to 24_s._ a quarter, a price
which prohibited all but the richest from eating wheaten bread. It is
said that 20,000 perished of starvation. In 1316, after the same cause,
wheat became so scarce that its price rose to 4_l._ a quarter. So great
was the distress this year, that great nobles had to dismiss their
retainers; the roads in the country were crowded with robbers. Robberies
were openly committed in the streets for the sake of food: in the
prisons the unfortunate criminals, left to starve, murdered and devoured
each other. The people ate carrion and dead dogs. In 1335 there was
another time of scarcity and suffering; in 1439, the distress was so
great that the people made bread of fern roots and ivy berries. Then,
for the first time, we read of the famine being assuaged by the arrival
of rye from Prussia. In 1527 a threatened famine was checked by the
Hanseatic merchants who gave, or sold, a hundred quarters of wheat to
the City and sent three ships to Dantzig for more. In 1593 and in 1597
wheat rose to an enormous price. The last time of scarcity was during
the long war with France, which lasted, from 1792 to 1815, nearly a
quarter of a century. We were then compelled to depend almost entirely
upon our own harvests. Wheat went up as high as 103_s._ a quarter.

At no time did the poorer classes depend much upon wheat. Rye and oats
made the bread of the working