Chart VIII. Prices of wheat in England, 1300-1890. Page 93.
_Prices of wheat in England for 600 years, 1300 to 1900_
_Description._--This chart is to show at a glance the history of the wheat market in England for the past six hundred years. The record of the first four hundred years is taken from Rogers' "Agriculture and Prices." That for the eighteenth century, less complete, is taken from Schoenhof's "History of Money and Prices." The nineteenth century record is from the report of the statistician of the United States Department of Agriculture. All are reduced with care to the basis of bushels and dollars and cents. The figures on the right and left show the price per bushel in United States money.
_Explanation._--The heavy horizontal lines show the average price during a period of ten years, though in a few instances the period is longer. The diagonal lines show the extremes of fluctuation during the period which they cover. During the first two hundred and fifty years the coinage of England made the shilling in which prices were reckoned a much larger unit, practically three times as great as at present. The dots within circles indicate where the horizontal lines might have been had the unit been always the same. The same dots crossed cover a period of forty years in which prices are somewhat uncertain, from transition between the old standard and the new. The beginning of the nineteenth century shows a remarkable condition of the wheat market, due chiefly to the wars in which England was engaged, together with issues of paper money affecting the standard of value. The record is especially interesting from showing, first, the great fluctuations natural from unequal seasons; second, the gradual increase in cost of production under the law of diminishing returns; third, the effects of changes in money legislation; fourth, the effect of extra consumption in times of war; and fifth, the effects of the present world-wide commerce in overcoming the law of diminishing returns. A more complete record for the eighteenth century would add to the interest, if not to the effectiveness of the chart.
_Relation to wages._--For convenience of comparison, the average price of wheat in France during periods of twenty-five years, as given by Schoenhof, is added by dotted horizontal lines. The double line across the chart indicates the range of average day's wages of house mechanics in England, without indicating the extreme of fluctuations. It seems evident that wages and subsistence have something in common.