A HISTORY OF SUFFOLK 



country to the other, the Irish steer is a totally different animal from the 

 island beast offered at Ipswich in the forties. 



But the most remarkable revolution in marketing in Suffolk has been 

 brought about by the repository system. Where one fat beast in Ipswich or 

 Bury St. Edmunds is sold by private contract on the stones of the market, 

 probably ten are sold at the repository sales. These repositories were not 

 started without risks nor without opposition. Risk of worthless cheques 

 from strangers ; ' knock outs ' by combination (a vicious practice not yet 

 entirely abandoned by low-class buyers and dealers) ; and the unscrupulous 

 fictitious bidding by consigners, long militated against the success of these 

 institutions. The small farmer, at one time little engaged in market trans- 

 actions, was practically at the mercy of the man who acted as the intermediary 

 between grazier and butcher. In many instances those who lacked capital 

 to go into the market for stores independently of anyone had to fill their 

 yards with beasts sent by the dealer at the price he chose to name, who 

 waited for his money till the animals were fat, and then took them once 

 more at his own valuation. When the bad times set in this disastrous practice 

 was more in evidence than ever. But there is this to be said, that there are 

 on our markets dealers in a large way of business strictly honourable in all 

 transactions, to whom many a struggling farmer is indebted for his yard of 

 beasts on the system I have mentioned, and thus may have tided over a 

 bad year. 



The fat stock repository has numerous features to recommend it. The 

 bullock cart — a modern invention — takes a single beast without damage to 

 the repository, furnishing the small capitalist with the month's wages of which 

 he is in need. The cheque arrives with a punctuality the old-fashioned 

 dealer was not always careful to regard. But if the system has effected a 

 revolution in the fat cattle trade, it is nothing to the alteration in marketing 

 which it has brought to the flockmaster. 



The lamb sales in Suffolk give some idea of the number of these animals 

 bred on the light lands. They have now been in operation many years. 

 The first that was started is held on a heath abutting on the Yarmouth turn- 

 pike three miles east of Ipswich, and this one is known as the Kesgrave Lamb 

 Sale. In July last it held its fiftieth anniversary. These sales take place in 

 June, July, and the late ones in August. The lambs at the June and July sales 

 come direct from the ewe. These repositories are almost invariably made up 

 from the produce of the same flocks year by year. They are attended by 

 numerous buyers not only from distant parts of the county, but from other 

 districts, and a purchaser having tried the lambs from one flock, if they turn 

 out well, has the opportunity of getting his next year's supply from the same 

 source. Where one lamb is now sold in the market or at a fair by single 

 contract fifty must pass under the auctioneer's hammer. They are exhibited in 

 a ring during the biddings, and yearly practice has enabled the managers to 

 effect these sales with the minimum of lost time. 



The Suffolk sheep fairs, if not totally extinguished like the cattle fairs, 

 have dwindled to mere shadows of what they were forty or fifty years ago. 

 Ipswich Lamb Fair, an exceedingly old institution, originally lasted three days. 

 The writer has a vivid recollection of standing by a pen from the commence- 

 ment to the close of the fair and selling the lambs on the way home. Where 



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