A HISTORY OF SUFFOLK 



farmer in pooling his produce with others, and so making a wholesale busi- 

 ness with the London dealer. 



The introduction of the vegetable business in connexion with sheep 

 breeding and dairying has a few notable examples in this county ; on one 

 farm near Woodbridge the occupier has built up a large connexion with the 

 London consumer. He has probably many hundred private customers, and 

 has at least a hundred hampers constantly on the line going backwards and 

 forwards from the nearest station. The small box system introduced on the 

 Great Eastern Railway a few years ago has made great progress. A short 

 time ago the writer saw a hundred of these packages taken by one customer 

 to fill with farm produce from a small station on the Yarmouth line. 



The benefit of agricultural shows has long been recognized in Suffolk. 

 The County Society held its first exhibition in 183 1 or 1832. But there 

 are numerous smaller societies and farmers' clubs holding annual meetings for 

 prize competition. There are excellent exhibits at Woodbridge, Framling- 

 ham, Eye, Stowmarket, Hadleigh, and one in the south-west of the county. 



One branch of agriculture has not been mentioned — the breeding of 

 riding horses. Although the hunter and hackney classes at our shows are well 

 filled, Suffolk does not rank high as a light-horse breeding county. It is 

 certainly not for want of opportunity of getting at first-class thoroughbred 

 sires, for the writer has now before him a list of forty-three first-class horses 

 which have, one after another, been located at the late Colonel Barlow's 

 paddocks at Hasketon. Amongst these were the blood of Melbourne and Bay 

 Middleton, Voltigeur, and Touchstone, Sweetmeat, Orlando, and Stockwell ; 

 with many a trotting horse which has brought there a ribbon from the 

 Royal Agricultural Society. 



About the year 1867 a sugar factory was started at Lavenham in West 

 Suffolk. It was kept at work for some six years, but was then abandoned, 

 as it was not a financial succcess. To the grower this was a great 

 disappointment. From one farm in the parish where the factory was 

 situated the output averaged more than 900 tons a year. There were some 

 700 or 800 acres of the occupation, but a source of receipt of £1,000 a 

 year without curtailing the cereal shift, even on a farm of this size indi- 

 cates a useful addition to the usual sale products from arable land. The 

 occupier of a farm four miles from the factory informed me that while the 

 factory was in work his business paid him 10 per cent, on his tenants' capital. 

 He had the cost of cartage to deduct from the profits, and yet sugar-beet culti- 

 vation enabled him to realize a living return. The pulp after the sugar had 

 been extracted was sold back to the farmer at 12s. a ton. The tillage was 

 not exactly like that for mangolds ; the roots had to be deeper in the 

 ground, with as much below the surface as possible. These were deterio- 

 rated by exposure to the sun and had to be taken up with a fork ; but 

 the cultivation of the crop left a profit. An effort is being made to induce 

 the introduction of the sugar business again, but at present no factory has 

 been started. 



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