ears 1243-8 the average yield of wheat at Combe, Oxfordshire, was 5
bushels per acre, of barley a little over 5, oats 7. In the Manor of
Forncett, in various years from 1290 to 1306, wheat yielded about 10
bushels, oats from 12 to 16, barley 16, and peas from 4 to 12 bushels
per acre.[85]

As for the dairy, 2 cows, says Walter, should yield a wey, (2 cwt) of
cheese annually, and half a gallon of butter a week, 'if sorted out
and fed in pasture of salt marsh;' but 'in pasture of wood or in
meadows after mowing, or in stubble, it should take 3 cows for the
same.' Twenty ewes, which it was then the custom to milk, fed in
pasture of salt marsh, ought to yield the same as the 2 cows. A gallon
of butter was worth 6d., and weighed 7 lb. And the anonymous treatise
says each cow ought to yield from the day after Michaelmas until the
first kalends of May, twenty-eight weeks, 10d. more or less; and from
the first kalends of May till Michaelmas, twenty-four weeks, the milk
of a cow should be worth 3s. 6d.; and she should give also 6 stones
(14 lb. per stone) of cheese, and 'as much butter as shall make as
much cheese.'[86] It was a common practice all through the Middle
Ages, and survives in localities to-day, to let out the cows by the
year, at from 3s. to 6s. 8d. a head, often to the daya or dairymaid,
the owner supplying the food, and the lessee agreeing to restore them
in equal number and condition at the end of the term.[87] The
anonymous treatise tells us that 'if you wish to farm out your stock
you can take 4s. 6d. clear for each cow and the tithe, and for a sheep
6d. and the tithe, and a sow should bring you 6s. 6d. a year and
acquit the tithe, and each hen 9d. and the tithe; and Walter says,
'When I was bailiff the dairymaids had the geese and hens to farm, the
geese at 12d. and the hens at 3d.'

Among other information conveyed by these two treatises we learn that
the poor servants or labourers were accustomed to be fed on the
diseased sheep, salted and dried; but Walter adds, 'I do not wish you
to do this.' Nor can we point the finger of scorn at this: for in the
disastrous season of 1879 numbers of rotten sheep were sold to the
butcher and consumed by the unsuspecting public without even being
salted and dried.

He further tells us that 'you can well have 3 acres weeded for 1d.,
and an acre of meadow mown for 4d., and an acre of waste meadow for
3-1/2d. And know that 5 men can well reap and bind 2 acres a day of
eac