, 8s. for
a sheep, 6s. 8d. for a barren ewe, 6d. for a couple of chickens, 1s.
6d. for 500 faggots.[259]

After the restoration in 1660 another period of prosperity set
in,[260] and altogether the century was a prosperous one for farmers
and manufacturers. The newly established Royal Society materially
helped agriculture. 'Since his majesty's most happy restoration the
whole land hath been fermented and stirred up by the profitable hints
it hath received from the Royal Society, by which means parks have
been disparked, commons enclosed, woods turned into arable, and
pasture lands improved by clover, St. foine, turnips, cole-seed, and
many other good husbandries, so that the food of cattle is increased
as fast, if not faster, than the consumption, and by these means the
rent of the kingdom is far greater than ever it was.'[261] The century
was distinguished also for the curious number of cycles of good and
bad seasons; 1646-50 were years of prolonged dearth, wheat reaching an
enormous price, and 1661-2, were famine years, while the end of the
century was long famous for its barren years.

With the prices of produce rents rose enormously. Very early in the
century[262] rents of arable land had increased ninefold, since the
fifteenth century, and by 1688 Davenant and King estimated the average
rent of arable land in England at 5s. 6d. per acre and of permanent
grass at 8s. 8d. Perhaps this is too high an estimate, as on the
Belvoir estate of 17,837 acres in 1692 the rental all round was 3s.
9-1/4d. an acre for land above the average in quality, though it must
be remembered that the Earls and Dukes of Rutland were indulgent
landlords.

The _History of Hawsted_ affords a valuable index of the increase of
rents at this period.[263] In 1500 the average rent was 1s. 4d. an
acre; in 1572, 39 acres of arable, meadow, and pasture were let for
2s. 3d. an acre, the landlord, it is interesting to notice, reserving
the right of hawking, netting rabbits, hunting, and fowling; and about
the same date other lands on the estate were let at 1s. 3d. and 1s.
6d. an acre, so that there had not generally been much advance since
1500, which is what we should expect, as the great rise took place at
the end of the sixteenth and the beginning of the seventeenth
centuries. In 1589, therefore, it is not surprising to find that 40
acres of meadow and pasture let at 5s. an acre, and in 1611 some
buildings and 155 acres of park at 11s. an acre. In