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In 1687, the price of the quarter of nine bushels of the best

wheat, at Windsor market, was £ 1:5:2, the lowest price at which

it had ever been from 1595.

In 1688, Mr Gregory King, a man famous for his knowledge in

matters of this kind, estimated the average price of wheat, in

years of moderate plenty, to be to the grower 3s. 6d. the bushel,

or eight-and-twenty shillings the quarter. The grower's price I

understand to be the same with what is sometimes called the

contract price, or the price at which a farmer contracts for a

certain number of years to deliver a certain quantity of corn to

a dealer. As a contract of this kind saves the farmer the expense

and trouble of marketing, the contract price is generally lower

than what is supposed to be the average market price. Mr King had

judged eight-and-twenty shillings the quarter to be at that time

the ordinary contract price in years of moderate plenty. Before

the scarcity occasioned by the late extraordinary course of bad

seasons, it was, I have been assured, the ordinary contract price

in all common years.