ESSEX ONE HUNDRED AND TWENTY YEARS AGO. 23
From Wanstead he went to Ilford, where he was particularly pleased with the
system of husbandry practised. Potatoes were largely grown there, and the
profits were exceedingly great. He says :—
"The landlord of the Red Lyon Inn at Ilford sold three roods as they grow,
without any expense of talcing up, the day I was there (July 13th) for £9; and
some Irishmen who had hired about two acres of ley-land of Mr. Johnston, the
brick merchant, took up forty sacks per acre, which amounts to above £20 per acre.
The crop I viewed, it was dibbled promiscuously. These Irishmen hired the
land at £4 per acre. It was once very common to have all the potatoe grounds
belonging to them, but of late the farmers have got pretty much into the culture
themselves."
From Ilford he pursued his way to Chelmsford, remarking that "the potatoe
culture is entirely done within three or four miles this side of Ilford, though the
soil is as good at a greater distance, and London near enough for the bringing
any kind of manures. So profitable as the growth of this root is, I was surprised
to find the cultivation of it extend no further." Chelmsford he mentions as the
conclusion of his journey.
It is, of course, impossible here to give any account of the various systems of
husbandry employed in different districts, or of many other details of interest.
But the rates of wages and the prices of provisions, especially in Essex, can hardly
be omitted.
At Sudbury, our author remarks that "the spinning is here a poor business, a
stout girl of fifteen or sixteen not being able to earn above 6d. a day; but the
combing is the best of all their employments, yielding from 12s. to 14s. a week.
The weavers of the fays and burying-crape earn from 7s. to 9s., but the first price
the most common. Besides these articles they weave ship-flags, which employ
the women and girls of seven or eight years of age, yielding the latter about 2S. 6d.
or 3s. a week. The whole manufactory works chiefly for the London markets,
but some fays go down their river (which is navigable from hence to Maningtree)
for exportation."
In the neighbourhood of Hedingham the prices of labour and provisions were:—
At Bocking and Braintree, the weavers earned on an average about 9s. per
week ; woolcombers about 12s; stout girls of 15 or 16, 4d. or 5d. a day at spin-
ning ; and girls of 7 or 8, 1s. a week, for rolling the weavers' quills; all these