Between 1617 and 1621 the price of wheat fell from 43s. 3d. to 21s. a quarter, and immediately affected the payment of rent.[303] Mr. John Chamberlain, in February, 1620, wrote to Sir Dudley Carleton, 'We are here in a strange state to complain of plenty, but so it is that corn beareth so low a price that farmers are very backward to pay their rents and in many places plead disability: for remedy whereof the Council have written letters into every shire to provide a granary with a stock to buy corn and keep it for a dear year.' Sir Symonds D'Ewes notes in his diary that 'at this time (1621) the rates of all sorts of corn were so extremely low as it made the very prices of land fall from twenty years' purchase to sixteen or seventeen. For the best wheat was sold for 2s. 8d. and 2s. 6d. the bushel, the ordinary at 2s. Barley and rye at 1s. 4d. and 1s. 3d. the bushel, and the worser of those grains at a meaner rate, the poorer sort that would have been glad but a few years before of coarse rye bread, did now usually traverse the markets to find out the finer wheats as if nothing else would please their palates'. Instead of being glad that they were for once having a small share of the good things of this world, he rejoices that their unthankfulness and daintiness was soon punished by high prices and dearness of all sorts of grain.[304] The year 1630 was the commencement of a series of dear seasons, when for nine consecutive years the price of wheat did not fall below 40s. a quarter and actually touched 86s. The restraints laid on corn-dealers had, since the principles of commerce were being better understood, been modified in 1624, but the high prices revived the old hatred against them, and we find Sir John Wingfield writing from Rutland that he has 'taken order that ingrossers of corne shall be carefullie seen unto and that there is no Badger (corn-dealer) licensed to carry corne out of this countrye nor any starch made of any kind of graine'. He adds that he had 'refrayned the maulsters from excessive making of mault, and had suppressed 20 alehouses'.[305] However, the senseless policy of preventing trade in corn received a severe blow from the statute 15 Car. II, c. 7, which enacted that when corn was under 48s. persons were to be allowed to buy and store corn and sell the same again without penalty, provided they did not sell it in the same market within three months of buying it, a statute which Adam Smith said contributed more to the progress of agriculture than any previous law in the statute book.