They go on to affirm that penned sheep can be better examined by prospective buyers who can "thereby find out the deceipts that are often used by the sellers, for that the said sellers of sheep doe oftentymes put Rigalds and Rammes in the company of wethers and likewise motherlesse lambs…. and also sue loose wooll upon the backes of sheepe that wanted wooll and many tymes colour the wooll upon their sheepe backes to make them seem to be sheepe that came from high grounds and such as could not roll in mose places. All which deceipts cannot be well discerned when the sheepe are at libertie in the open Feilds but may be well proved and discovered by the buyer when the sheepe are brought out of the sayd pen yards or other convenient places where they may be handled."
Whatever may have been the outcome of this dispute both the Palmsun and Michaelmas Fairs continued to flourish and in 1694 Abraham de la Pryme, the observant curate of Broughton, recorded in his Diary  "Octob. 3. Yesterday was Caster fair  there was almost no silver to bee seen at it, nothing but gold. Everyone had five, or ten, or twenty, or one hundred guineas a piece. There was nothing almost to be seen for all sorts of things but gold."
These fairs probably reached the height of their prosperity during the nineteenth century. In 1826 at the Palmsun Fair, 20,000 sheep were penned, the prices being 10/- to 19/- for hogs, 18/- to 25/- for ewes, and 20/- to 30/- for shearling wethers. By 1858 the number sold rose to about 60,000 and the price of hogs, which was considered poor, was 41/- to 47/-
In 1860 the weather was bad and few buyers came from away, but prices averaged 50/- to 54/- each, some reaching £3. The Michaelmas Fair that year was the worst for a long time and "the beast fair was less by near 1,000 head of cattle than of late years."  By this time the Whitsun Fair had degenerated into a matter of a few amusement caterers and cheap-jacks attempting to attract custom and the only comment in the local press was that two arrests for drunkenness were made.
The following year produced beautiful weather in March and the Palmsun Fair was well attended. The price of hogs remained in the neighbourhood of 54/-.  Even so, decline