Rent, &c. 1 8 0 One ploughing 4 0 Three harrowings 1 0 Seed 10 0 Sowing 3 Water furrowing 9 Thistling 1 6 Reaping and harvesting 7 0 Threshing, @ 2s. a quarter 7 0 ---------- £2 19 6 ==========
Rent, &c. 1 8 0 Two ploughings 8 0 Seed, 2 bushels 8 0 Sowing 6 Twice hand-hoeing 12 0 Twice horse-hoeing 3 0 Reaping and harvesting 8 0 Threshing 5 0 ---------- £3 12 6 ==========
Rent, &c. 1 8 0 Once ploughing 4 0 Two harrowings 8 Four bushels of seed 6 0 Sowing 3 Mowing and harvesting 3 0 Threshing, @ 1s. a quarter 6 0 ---------- £2 7 11 ==========
Good land at a high rent is always better than poor land at a low rent; the average profit per acre on 5s. land was then about 8s. 8d., on 20s. land, 29s.
Grass was much more profitable than tillage, the profit on 20 acres of arable in nine years amounted to £88, whereas on grass it was £212, or 9s. 9d. an acre per annum for the former and 23s. for the latter.[453] Yet dairying, at all events, was then on the whole badly managed and unprofitable. The average cow ate 2-1/2 acres of grass, and the rent of this with labour and other expenses made the cost £5 a year per cow, and its average produce was not worth more than £5 6s. 3d.[454] This scanty profit was due to the fact that few farmers used roots, cabbages, &c., for their cows, and to their wrong management of pigs, kept on the surplus dairy food. By good management the nett return could be made as much as £4 15s. 0d. per cow.
The management of sheep in the north of England was wretched. In Northumberland the profit was reckoned at 1s. a head, partly derived from cheese made from ewes' milk. The fleeces averaged 2 lb., and the wool was so bad as not to be worth more than 3d. or 4d. per lb.[455]
Pigs could be made to pay well, as the following account testifies:
Food and produce of a sow in one year (1763), which produced seven pigs in April and eleven in October:
Grains 10 4 Cutting a litter 1 6 5 quarters peas 5 2 0 10 bushels barley 1 0 0 Expenses in selling[456] 11 6 10 bushels peas 1 6 3 ---------- £8 11 7 ==========
A pig 2 3 A fat hog 1 9 0 Another, 110 lb. wt. 1 12 9 Another, 116 lb. wt. 2 0 0 Heads 5 3 3 fat hogs 6 7 0 1 fat hog 2 0 0 10 young pigs 4 16 6 ----------- £18 12 9 8 11 7 ----------- Profit £10 1 2 ===========