Large quantities of salt were from time to time lost in the Severn, as the vessels laden with that commodity were making their way down the river from Worcester, owing to strong tides and violent winds; and the rolls record frequent applications to the Court "for certificates to entitle them (the owners) to such allowance as the act of Parliament permits." These allowances were no doubt the return of a part or the whole of the very heavy duty then levied on salt.

By the 21st George III, chap. 58, and 26th George III, chap. 43, certain bounties were offered for the cultivation of hemp and flax. Nevertheless, England has never grown a sufficient quantity for its own consumption, farmers not regarding it with favour, owing to the supposed exhaustive nature of the crop. In Worcestershire, for 1782 and some following years, claims were made (and allowed by Quarter Sessions) for these bounties, by—

From 1787 to 1792 the Worcestershire claims for flax bounty amounted to £79. 8s. 10d., and these were allowed.

Tobacco also was an article of which the Court of Quarter Sessions took cognisance, and some interesting particulars relative to the growth and suppression of "the weed" in Worcestershire will be found in another part of this work.

In the year 1670 the grand jury presented Henry Sandalls, bailiff of Bewdley, "who hath toll of the market, for upholding unjust measures;" Elias Arch, bailiff of Kidderminster, ditto; Thomas Foley, Esq., "who receives the benefit of the toll of Stourbridge, for not providing a brass measure according to act of Parliament, and for not making the measures of the town according to the same; and that the justices do take into consideration the great abuse that the people of this county which resort to this city of Worcester to market do receive by unjustness of the measures, and by the jogging and shaking of the same;" and suggesting various rewards for the capture of several known offenders.

About the year 1747 a terrible distemper broke out amongst horned cattle, which all the vigilance of the authorities could not prevent from spreading. The Worcestershire Bench first ordered "that 4s. per week be allowed to the several turnpikes where it shall be thought necessary in order to have a man sitt up every night to watch the sayd turnpikes, that no horned cattle be permitted to goe through the sayd turnpikes without propper certificates be first showne, and surveyors of the severall turnpikes to appoint propper persons to watch at the said turnpikes, the expense to be paid by the county." Next year it was ordered "that Grey Devy, of Kingswinford, be appointed inspector for the hundred of Halfshire in relation to infected cattle, to take care that no infected cattle be brought into any parish of the said hundred, and persue the order of counsel made for preventing the spreading the infection amongst the horned cattle; and to be allowed 7s. a week till further order." In 1750 the distemper still raged, especially in the adjoining county of Salop, and the magistrates licensed "Edmund Lechmere, of Hanley Castle, Esq., to buy and sell cattle at any fair, market, or place, where the buying or selling of cattle is not prohibited, and to drive, sell, or dispose of them, at any other fair, market, or place, as aforesaid, tho' he shall not have obtained the certificate directed by the said court, the said Edmund Lechmere having entered into a recognizance with two suretys, according to the directions of the said act" (of the previous Session). Many other similar licenses were afterwards granted, and the constables were ordered to prevent all persons not having such licenses from driving cattle to fairs, nor was any person allowed to bring cattle into the county without a certificate of their freedom from disease. The Clerk of the Peace was also ordered to procure 600 copies of an abstract of a certain treatise on the distemper, with a prescribed method of cure, by an eminent physician in Worcester, and distribute them to the chief constables and inspectors in this and the adjoining counties of Salop and Warwick. The cordon sanitaire was relaxed in 1751, but the following year the distemper broke out in this county with great severity, and vigilance was again renewed. A meeting having been advertised for buying and selling cattle at Beoley, the Sessions ordered that the meeting be prohibited, the distemper being at Kingsnorton, and that it be advertised in the Worcester and Birmingham journals, and notice given in Beoley church. It was not till July, 1756, that the distemper entirely abated, and all orders were rescinded.