Vegetable substances used for the food of man / [Edwin Lankester. Revised and partly rewritten].
- Edwin Lankester
- Date:
- 1846
Licence: Public Domain Mark
Credit: Vegetable substances used for the food of man / [Edwin Lankester. Revised and partly rewritten]. Source: Wellcome Collection.
90/518 page 84
![slaves, and the inferior kind of people to feed upon. Hereunto, likewise, because it is drie and brickie in the working, some add a portion of rie-meale in our time, whereby the rough drinesse thereof is somewhat quali- fied, and then it is named mescelin, that is, bread made of mingled come.'’ In the household book of Sir Ed- ward Coke, in 1596, we find constant entries of oatmeal for the use of the house, besides “ otmell to make the poorc folkes porage,” and “ rie-meall, to make breade for the poore.” The household wheaten bread was partly baked in the house and partly taken of the baker. In that 3^ear it appears, from the historian Stow, that there was a great fluctuation in the price of corn ; and he particularly mentions the price of oatmeal, which would indicate that it was an article of general consumption, as well in a liquid form, as in that of the oat-cakes of the north of England. In 1626, Charles I., upon an occasion of subjecting the brewers and maltsters to a royal licence, declared that the measure was “ for the relief of the poorer sort of his people, whose usual bread was barley; and for the restraining of innkeepers and victuallers, who made their ale and beer too strong and heady.” The grain to be saved by the weakness of the beer was for the benefit of the consumers of barley-bread. At the period of the Revolution (1689) wheaten bread formed, in comparison with its present consump- tion, a small ])roportion of the food of the pco])le of England. The following estimate of the then ])roduce of the arable land in the kingdom tends to prove this position. This estimate was made bv Grogorj' King, whose statistical calculations have gcncrall}' been con- sidered entitled to credit:— Bushels. Wheat 14,000,000 Rye .... 10,000,000 Harley 27,000,000 Oats .... 16,000,000 Pease . . . , 7,000,000 Ileaus 4,000,000 Vetches 1,000,000 In all . 79,000,000](https://iiif.wellcomecollection.org/image/b22029710_0090.jp2/full/800%2C/0/default.jpg)
