I shall now proceed to reverse the order of proceeding which has hitherto been adopted, and to show that the hypothesis of the hide having comprised from thirty to thirty-three acres is the only one which will answer the conditions found in various grants: that in a number of cases from very different parts of England, a larger number of acres would either be impossible or most improbable: that it is entirely impossible for the hide to have reached 120 or even 100 acres, and that the amount left after deducting the arable, to form pastures and meadows, is by no means extravagant. The examples are taken from different charters printed in the Codex Diplomaticus Ævi Saxonici, and for convenience of reference are arranged tabularly. The comparison is made with the known acreage, taken from the Parliamentary return of 1841[174]. The table is constructed upon the following plan. The first column contains the name of the place; the second, the number of hides; the third, the actual acreage; the fourth, fifth, sixth, seventh, and eighth, the hides calculated at thirty, thirty-two, thirty-three, forty and one hundred acres respectively; the ninth, tenth, eleventh and twelfth, the excess of real over supposed acreage, at the first four amounts; the thirteenth, the excess of hidage over real acreage on the hypothesis of one hundred acres per hide; the fourteenth, fifteenth, sixteenth and seventeenth, the ratios of hidage at thirty, thirty-two, thirty-three and forty, to the excess, from which we deduce the proportion between the arable, and the meadow, pasture and waste. In a few instances, there is a double return, implying that it is uncertain to which, of two synonymous districts, a grant must be referred. ----- Footnote 174: Enumeration Abstract, etc., 1841. I have also used the tables found in Mr. Porter’s Progress of the Nation; in these however, the total acreage, calculated apparently upon the square miles, differs slightly from the results of the Government inquiry, Mr. Porter’s numbers always exceeding those of the _Blue-book_. -----