I have not been able to find any such authentic records concerning the price of raw hides in ancient times.Wool was commonly paid as a subsidy to the king, and its valuation in that subsidy ascertains, at least in some degree, what was its ordinary price.But this seems not to have been the case with raw hides.Fleetwood, however, from an account in 1425, between the prior of Burcester Oxford and one of his canons, gives us their price, at least as it was stated upon that particular occasion, viz., five ox hides at twelve shillings; five cow hides at seven shillings and threepence; thirty-six sheep skins of two years old at nine shillings; sixteen calves skins at two shillings.In 1425, twelve shillings contained about the same quantity of silver as four-and-twenty shillings of our present money.An ox hide, therefore, was in this account valued at the same quantity of silver as 4s.four-fifths of our present money.Its nominal price was a good deal lower than at present.But at the rate of six shillings and eightpence the quarter, twelve shillings would in those times have purchased fourteen bushels and four-fifths of a bushel of wheat, which, at three and sixpence the bushel, would in the present times cost 51s.4d.An ox hide, therefore, would in those times have purchased as much corn as ten shillings and threepence would purchase at present.Its real value was equal to ten shillings and threepence of our present money.In those ancient times, when the cattle were half starved during the greater part of the winter, we cannot suppose that they were of a very large size.An ox hide which weighs four stone of sixteen pounds avoirdupois is not in the present times reckoned a bad one; and in those ancient times would probably have been reckoned a very good one.But at half-a-crown the stone, which at this moment (February 1773) I understand to be the common price, such a hide would at present cost only ten shillings.Though its nominal price, therefore, is higher in the present than it was in those ancient times, its real price, the real quantity of subsistence which it will purchase or command, is rather somewhat lower.The price of cow hides, as stated in the above account, is nearly in the common proportion to that of ox hides.That of sheep skins is a good deal above it.They had probably been sold with the wool.That of calves skins, on the contrary, is greatly below it.In countries where the price of cattle is very low, the calves, which are not intended to be reared in order to keep up the stock, are generally killed very young; as was the case in Scotland twenty or thirty years ago.It saves the milk, which their price would not pay for.Their skins, therefore, are commonly good for little.
The price of raw hides is a good deal lower at present than it was a few years ago, owing probably to the taking off the duty upon sealskins, and to the allowing, for a limited time, the importation of raw hides from Ireland and from the plantations duty free, which was done in 1769.Take the whole of the present century at an average, their real price has probably been somewhat higher than it was in those ancient times.The nature of the commodity renders it not quite so proper for being transported to distant markets as wool.It suffers more by keeping.A salted hide is reckoned inferior to a fresh one, and sells for a lower price.This circumstance must necessarily have some tendency to sink the price of raw hides produced in a country which does not manufacture them, but is obliged to export them; and comparatively to raise that of those produced in a country which does manufacture them.It must have some tendency to sink their price in a barbarous, and to raise it in an improved and manufacturing country.It must have had some tendency, therefore, to sink it in ancient and to raise it in modern times.Our tanners, besides, have not been quite so successful as our clothiers in convincing the wisdom of the nation that the safety of the commonwealth depends upon the prosperity of their particular manufacture.They have accordingly been much less favoured.The exportation of raw hides has, indeed, been prohibited, and declared a nuisance; but their importation from foreign countries has been subjected to a duty;and though this duty has been taken off from those of Ireland and the plantations (for the limited time of five years only), yet Ireland has not been confined to the market of Great Britain for the sale of its surplus hides, or of those which are not manufactured at home.The hides of common cattle have but within these few years been put among the enumerated commodities which the plantations can send nowhere but to the mother country;neither has the commerce of Ireland been in this case oppressed hitherto in order to support the manufactures of Great Britain.
Whatever regulations tend to sink the price either of wool or of raw hides below what it naturally would be must, in an improved and cultivated country, have some tendency to raise the price of butcher's meat.The price both of the great and small cattle, which are fed on improved and cultivated land, must be sufficient to pay the rent which the landlord and the profit which the farmer has reason to expect from improved and cultivated land.If it is not, they will soon cease to feed them.