188 Animal ajid Animal Products Trades 



GRAZIER. 



A grazier was a fattener of animals, whether their food was grass, 

 turnips, oil-cake, or other provender.^ As such, he might more prop- 

 erly be classed as a producer than as a middleman. But since he 

 usually bought his stock and did not breed them, and since he kept 

 in close touch with the market and operated as other middlemen did 

 in order to affect the prices reigning there, he had some middleman 

 quality. 



In the period of high prices in the middle of the eighteenth century 

 much complaint was manifest against the grazier for his at least 

 alleged control of the cattle market.- At this time it was said that 

 whenever a farmer had any cattle which he proposed to drive to Lon- 

 don, the grazier or his agent became a purchaser on the spot; the 

 farmer thus saved himself the trouble, expense and risk of driving 

 them to a distant sale; but the grazier thus monopolized the cattle 

 fit for slaughter, and by sending to or keeping from the market could 

 influence prices at will, the relatively small number of graziers mak- 

 ing the act easy. The charges were denied by the graziers. The 

 question cannot be determined, and is only mentioned to show that 

 the grazier had middleman possibilities. 



Attention is called to two instances illustrating the business of the 

 grazier. The first concerns the marketing of Scotch cattle, by the 

 graziers of Norfolk.^ There was a Httle village, St. Faith's, in Norfolk 

 to which the Scots brought the most of their export cattle; and at 

 this place they were bought up by the Norfolk graziers. They owned 

 a vast tract of meadowland and fed these "Runts" from the cold and 

 barren highlands into the fattest beef in England. In these marshes 

 40,000 were being pastured in 1722, sufficient for the supply of Nor- 

 wich, Yarmouth and the other towns of the county, besides a great 

 number dispatched to London weekly throughout the winter season. 



The other instance concerns sheep.^ This traffic centered in Wey- 

 hill, the greatest fair for sheep in the Isle, where 500,000 were sold in 

 one fair; the graziers out of Berks, Oxford, Bucks, Bedford, Hertford, 

 Middlesex, Kent, Surrey, and Sussex were the buyers, but not for 

 immediate kiUing. The farmers of these several counties clubbed in 



i\V. Marshall, Norfolk, II, 380 (1787); cf. R. L'Estranger, Seneca's Morals 

 (1678) 47; Gent. Mag., 1755:365. 



- For example, see Gent. Mag., 1755: 294. 

 ' The data are taken from Defoe, Tour, I, 69. 

 * Ibid., II, 45. 



