A HISTORY OF SUFFOLK 



with which beef, mutton, and milk are sent into the market from that farm 

 represents the latest development of practical, scientific, and, let us hope, 

 paying agriculture. Many years ago I had related to me a detailed descrip- 

 tion of what was the practice on that same occupation in the early decades of 

 the last century. My informant was born about the year 1790. In place of 

 the modern plant of cattle-sheds, root-houses, and covered yards, the bullock 

 grazing was then carried on in the fields where the roots grew. The only 

 protection from the weather was the haulm walls, and the accumulation of 

 manure stacked up behind the beasts. The same system is similarly described 

 by Arthur Young. The steers bred on the farm were kept lean on the 

 undrained low meadows till they were three years old. The last winter they 

 were ' finished ' on white turnips, cabbages, and hay. All grain or artificial 

 food was at that time too valuable to make into beef. 



The dairying was as primitive as the cattle management. Butter was 

 made in large quantities, and was either sent to London or supplied the local 

 demand. The only cheese made in Suffolk in the early part of the nineteenth 

 century was the ' Suffolk Bang,' a flet milk cheese, for which there would 

 now be no more demand than for the thick pickled fat off the back of the 

 pig, with which the indoor-servants were mostly fed in the kitchen. When 

 fit for sale this skimmed milk cheese was hard beyond belief. The price was 

 z\d. per Ib. The last evidence of this branch of dairying which came under 

 the notice of the present writer was a long upper chamber, shelved on both 

 sides, with lattice windows at the ends for securing a draught, at a farmhouse 

 in this parish. It has long been dismantled and used for other purposes. 

 This cheese was the staple article on the kitchen table, and at the cottage 

 dinner. The word ' dairymaid ' has long outlived the occupation which 

 gave the name to the servant who worked the dairy. With the assistance of 

 the cook she did the principal part of the milking ; dairy hours commencing 

 at four o'clock in the morning. She was of far more importance in the 

 farmer's household than the cook and commanded higher wages. 



In a few isolated centres a very good cheese is made in Suffolk. One 

 farmer on the banks of the Stour erected an excellent plant, and worked it 

 under the management of an expert from the Cheddar district. The tenant 

 has a stall in the provision market at Ipswich, but I believe the new 

 milk trade pays him better. There are very few farms in Suffolk where 

 cheese is made. At one time there was made a kind of Stilton on 

 a few farms in the eastern part of the county ; but I understand it could 

 not be produced at a price any less than that of real Stilton. In those 

 days butter for the retail trade was measured in pints equal to a pound and 

 quarter. The consumer introduced the sale by weight, but the farmer was 

 often a gainer by the innovation. From the dairy districts, in the localities of 

 Framlingham, Stradbroke, Eye, and Debenham, immense quantities of butter 

 were conveyed to the London markets by the road waggons, a mode of goods 

 traffic difficult to realize in these days of rapid commercial deliveries. In the 

 early decades of the nineteenth century the cowkeeper realized about 6 per 

 head of produce from the average cow ; with butter, flet milk cheese, and a 

 calf, he was satisfied with this. Young puts it at 7, but from one who 

 formerly kept a dairy of from 50 to 100 cows I gathered this was an extreme 

 estimate. With well-managed, highly-fed cows, and a milk run in a town 



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