A HISTORY OF SUFFOLK 



the present Suffolk is due to the introduction of Flemish blood, is without 

 the slightest foundation. Not a single instance of any such introduction, by 

 tradition or record, could be found to support the theory. The extraordinary 

 uniformity of character, in colour, outline, and other distinctive points, is 

 doubtless due to the circumstance of one common source of origin. The 

 large volume already referred to is nearly out of print, but a few years ago 

 the Suffolk Horse Society published a six-page pamphlet, 1 from which many 

 interesting particulars of the breed may be gathered. 



The Red-polled Suffolk cow belongs as much to Norfolk as to this 

 county. 2 The pedigrees are intermingled and good animals find their way 

 from the best herds in one county into the best herds in the other. The 

 best herds still retain much of the milking qualities which distinguished the 

 old pale red cow found in the dairy farms in Suffolk a hundred years ago, but 

 not quite to the extent recorded by some writers of that period. Every effort 

 is being made by the best breeders to improve the Suffolk steer as a show 

 beast at the Christmas exhibitions, and while attempting this they have not 

 sacrificed their milking qualities. At present their efforts have met with 

 limited success and those who exhibit at Islington may well envy the back 

 and loin of the Hereford, the Devon, and the Aberdeen Angus breeds. But 

 the Red-poll is an admirable grazer, and as a growing steer, or a cow in 

 milk, the breed is hard to beat. 



The Black-faced Suffolk is fast becoming a favourite sheep. The 

 breeders are getting a footing as far north as Scotland, and as far south as 

 the Cape, and Australia. It has found its way into distant shires and is 

 gaining year by year a firmer hold in all the sheep districts in the eastern 

 counties. In fact it is the sheep of the day in its old home and the surround- 

 ing districts. When the heaths in East Suffolk were gradually giving way 

 to the plough, and root culture was being recognized as the foundation of the 

 barley crop, there arose a demand for a sheep more adapted for high feeding 

 and early maturity, than the deer-like Norfolk which had so long cheerfully 

 faced the two-mile walk to the fold at night. The Southdown cross effected 

 a splendid improvement as far as mutton and early maturity were concerned. 

 In West Suffolk the Sussex cross was less favoured than the heavier, coarser 

 ram from Hampshire. Five-and-twenty years ago the Black-faces seen in 

 both sides of the county bore unmistakable evidence of the source from which 

 the improvement came. The West Suffolk breed were less adapted for the 

 heath farms in the east, but they produced a heavier carcase through the high 

 feeding and close folding adopted by the farmers on the Cambridgeshire side 

 of the county when they sent the mutton into the market. It was at the 

 instigation of the East Suffolk breeders that the Suffolk Agricultural Society 

 offered prizes for ' Black-faced sheep now named the Suffolk.' But no 

 sooner did the show-yard open, than the East Suffolk heath farm breeders 

 were outclassed for every prize offered. Then came the blending of the two 

 sorts. The East Suffolk men went into the west for the rams, from which 

 they obtained a heavier carcase, and if, as the old shepherds maintained, the 

 new sort did not face the heath as the descendants of the Southdowns did, 



1 The Suffolk Horse, what he is, and where to find him. 



' The secretary of the Red-polled Society, Mr. Euren of Norwich, compiled an excellent account of the 

 breed in the first volume of the Herd Book. 



400 



