AGRICULTURE 



the breeders had to cater for the public. But the ' comical mixture of Hants, 

 Sussex, and Norfolk,' as a show-yard reporter once described the exhibits, has 

 now become no mixture at all. It is a magnificent breed of sheep. No 

 shepherds of other herds can compete for the lamb-rearing prizes with a 

 Black-faced flock of the present day. Probably no ewe in England pro- 

 duces the number of good healthy lambs to the score that these sheep do. 



Within the memory of a middle-aged man no animal has undergone 

 such a complete change of character as the pig bred in Suffolk. The original 

 Suffolk was white, with an extremely short nose, big in the cheek, round 

 in the rib, with a wide flat back and as short in the leg as any domesticated 

 animal in existence. It would probably be the perfect model of the greatest 

 weight of flesh in the smallest compass possible. Such was the Suffolk pig 

 fifty years ago, and much later on. In 1856 a neighbour of the writer 

 showed a sow with an eight weeks old litter at the Royal Agricultural 

 Society's show held at Chelmsford. He refused forty guineas for a pair of 

 the pigs to go to France. A herd of the best of these was a mine of wealth 

 to the breeder forty years ago. Then came the Black Suffolk the exact 

 counterpart of the kind just described but black instead of white; these 

 made fabulous prices. The late Mr. Crisp of Butley Abbey showed a sow 

 of this breed at the International Exhibition in Paris, about the year 1858. 

 The judges disqualified her, as too fat to breed, but her future history showed 

 that this judgement was mistaken. After a time these Black Diamonds 

 as they were called, and the White Suffolk, which was the original breed of 

 the county, went as completely out of fashion as the flail and the sickle ; sixty 

 years ago the thick fat on the back was pickled in brine not made into 

 bacon it was pickled pork, the mainstay of many a cottage dinner and 

 many a farmer's kitchen ; there would be little sale for it now. But the call 

 for bacon became louder. The breeds described had to give way to a totally 

 differently formed pig. Hence the run on the large breed of black pig. I do 

 not know that it has any especial claim to be called a Suffolk production, 

 though some of the best of the breed and some of the most successful exhibi- 

 tors hail from this county. They have the forward pointed ear converging 

 to the end of the nose ; great depth of rib, producing heavy weight of the 

 best bacon parts ; large hams, but the back is neither wide nor deeply covered 

 with fat. To those who remember the Black Diamonds they do not appeal 

 on the score of beauty. They are in their present development somewhat 

 coarse, but are largely patronized by the best stock farmers, and the breed 

 makes way. 



Nothing has been said of poultry farming. It is not an especial feature 

 in the agriculture of the county ; but there is no doubt that the number kept 

 on a farm, not round the homestead, but in colonies all over the holding, is 

 rapidly increasing. As a poultry farm distinct from other features on the 

 occupation, the writer knows of none on a large scale. On small holdings 

 poultry is a great item ; but it has been most successfully adopted in scattered 

 centres distant from each other in the usual stock farm. To judge by the 

 immense number of movable hen-houses now to be seen in every direction 

 the Suffolk farmer evidently makes poultry pay. 



The Co-operative Society at Framlingham has given an enormous impetus 

 to the egg industry. It has been a great assistance to the small poultry 

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