Corn was still subject to extraordinary fluctuations:  in 1557, Holinshed says before harvest wheat was 53s. 4d. a quarter, malt 44s.  After harvest wheat was 5s., malt 6s. 8d., the former prices being due to a terrible drought in England.  Oxen in the period 1583-1703 were worth 75s. instead of under L1 in the period 1400-1540.  Wool was from 9d. to 1s. a lb. instead of about 3-1/2d., and all other farm products increased with these.[215] Hops were from 1540-1582 about 26s. 8d. a cwt., and from 1583-1700, 82s. 9-1/2d.  In 1574 Reynold Scott published the first English treatise on hops,[216] in which he says, ’one man may well keep 2,000 hils, upon every hil well ordered you shall have 3 lb. of hoppes at the least, one hundred pounds of these hoppes are commonly worth 26s. 8d., one acre of ground and the third part of one man’s labour with small cost beside, shall yield unto him that ordereth the same well, fortie marks yearly and that for ever,’ an optimistic estimate that many growers to-day would like to see realized.  ’In the preparation of a hop garden’, says the same writer, ’if your ground be grasse, it should be first sowen with hempe or beanes which maketh the ground melowe, destroyeth weedes, and leaveth the same in good season for this purpose.[217] At the end of Marche, repayre to some good garden to compound with the owner for choice rootes, which in some places will cost 5d. an hundredth.  And now you must choose the biggest rootes you can find, such as are three or four inches about, and let every root be nine or ten inches long, and contain three joints.’  Holes were then to be dug at least 8 feet apart, one foot square, and one foot deep, and in each two or three roots planted and well hilled up.  Tusser, however, recommended them much closer: 

     ’Five foot from another each hillock should stand,
     As straight as a levelled line with the hand. 
     Let every hillock be four foot wide. 
     Three poles to a hillock, I pas not how long,
     Shall yield the more profit set deeplie and strong.’

Three or four poles were to be set to each hill 15 or 16 feet long, unless the ground was very rich, the poles 9 or 10 inches in circumference at the butt, so as to last longer and stand the wind well.  After they were put up, the ground round the poles was to be well rammed.  Rushes or grass were used for tieing the hops.  During the growth of the hops, not more than two or three bines were to be allowed to each pole; and after the first year the hills were to be gradually raised from the alleys between the rows until, according to the illustrations in Scott’s book, they were 3 or 4 feet high, the ’greater you make your hylles the more hoppes you shall have upon your poals’.  When the time for picking came, the bines when cut were carried to a ‘floore prepared for the purpose’, apparently of hardened earth, where they were stripped into baskets, and Scott thought that ’it is not hurtfull greatly though the smaller leaves be