[245] Cunningham, _Industry and Commerce_, ii. 38. The Statute of Labourers of 1351 made the same effort, see p. 43. [246] Thorold Rogers, _History of Agriculture and Prices_, iv. 120; and _Work and Wages_, p. 389. [247] See above. [248] Thorold Rogers, _Work and Wages_, pp. 390-1. [249] _Archaeologia_, xi. 200. [250] Thorold Rogers, _Six Centuries of Work and Wages_, p. 396. [251] Cullum, _Hawsted_, p. 215. It is strange to find food reckoned so highly; if the common labourer at Hawsted received his food, he was only paid 5d. a day in winter, and 6d. in summer; if one man's food was reckoned at half his wages, how far did the other half go in feeding and clothing his family? CHAPTER XI 1600-1700 CLOVER AND TURNIPS.--GREAT RISE IN PRICES. MORE ENCLOSURE.--A FARMING CALENDAR The seventeenth century was one of considerable progress in English agriculture. The decay of common-field farming was enabling individual enterprise to have its way. The population was rapidly growing; by 1688 the returns of the hearth tax prove that the northern counties were nearly as thickly populated as the southern, and prices during the first half were continually rising, though after that they remained almost stationary, since the effect of the influx of precious metals from the New World was exhausted. In the first half of the century John Smyth ascribes the advance of rents to the Castilian voyages opening the New World, whereby such floods of treasure have flowed into Europe that the rates of Christendom are raised near twentyfold'.