The Natural History of Selborne

Dr Chandler buys of the Holiburne trufle-man one pound of trufles; price 2s. 6d.

Women & children go a-acorning, & sell their acorns at one shilling pr bushel.

Men sow wheat in good order at Temple & Wick-hill.  The hop-planters of this parish returned from Wey-hill fair with chearful faces, & full purses; having sold a large crop of hops for a good rice.  The hops of Kent were blown away by the storms, after the crop of this country was gathered in.

Finished gathering-in the apples.  Apples are in such plenty, that they are sold for 8d per bushel.

The crop of acorns is so prodigious that the trees look quite white with them; & the poor make, as it were a second harvest of them, by gathering them at one shilling pr. bushel.  At the same time not one beech-mast is to be seen.  This plenty of acorns has raised store-pigs to an extravagant price.

From the scantiness of the grass I have given for sometime 9 d pr pd. for butter; a price here not know before.

Sheep-ponds on the downs are all filled by rains.  A great beast-market this day at Arundel.

Hops were a drug at Wey-hill-fair: unusual quantities of were exposed for sale.

London.  When I came to town I found that herrings were out of season, but sprats, which Ray says are undoubtedly young herrings, abounded in such quantities, that in these hard times they were a great help to the poor.  Cods & haddocks in plenty: smelts beginning to come in.  The public papers here abounded with accounts of most severe & early frosts, not only in the more Northern parts of Europe, but on the Rhine, & in Holland.  The news of severe weather usually reaches us some days before the cold arrives; which most times follows soon when we hear of rigorous cold on the Continent.

Hops sold at Wey-hill fair from 2:16:0 to 4:4:0: & 5:0:0 to 5:10:0.