THE PEASANT'S GAIN 87
peasant's actual return if we put it at some 8 bushels per acre.
But, of course, he did not sow the whole of his land with wheat,
and Sir William Ashley1 and others have argued very strongly
that wheat was only a small part of his crop, and that we must
envisage him as sowing rye, barley, oats, peas and beans, or
mixtures of these, all bringing in a varying return. If we sup-
pose, for the sake of argument, that these are all sown in equal
proportions, then the yield according to the author of Hose-
bonderie would be sixfold,2 or if we take Sir William Beveridge's
figures for wheat, barley and oats only, we get a figure of 11-4
bushels per acre.3
From the above figures it is obvious that we shall be weighing
the balance in the peasant's favour if we assume his holdings
could be cultivated as successfully as could those of his lord, and
that, at the maximum, his average yield from all kinds of seed
was about n| bushels per acre. We can be a little more definite
by saying that if he planted his 20 acres in equal areas of wheat,
barley and oats his crop would yield him 68 bushels of wheat,
95 bushels of barley and 70 bushels of oats. We need not, in this
connection, take any notice of the question of tithe, for, as
Mr Lennard has recently shown in so convincing a manner, tithe
was taken in the field, and before the sheaves ever reached the
grange where it had to be accounted for by the manorial officers.4
Two deductions, however, must be maSe from this total of
233 bushels. First we must deduct the amount required as seed
corn. Again, using the Winchester figures, we find that approxi-
mately 2 J bushels of wheat, or 3! of barley or 4^ of oats were re-
quired for each acre,5 so that the 20 acres would use up i6f, 25
and 28^ bushels respectively, leaving 163 bushels to go to the
miller. Now if we assume the miller took an average multure of
one-sixteenth,6 this left the peasant with approximately 48, 66
and 39 bushels—a total of about 153 bushels.
The problem now faces us—what could the peasant do with
this 153 bushels of mixed corn? No answer of any great value
1 See Econ. Journ. xxxi, 285, and The Bread of Our Far efothers y passim.
For a rebuttal of Ashley's views see Econ. Journ. xxxn, 119.
* Op. cit. 71.
8 Op. cit. 161. This would equal 9*12 modern bushels.
4 Econ. Journ. (Supplement), Feb. 1936.
6 Beveridge, op. cit. 158. 6 See below, p. 133.