ESSEX AND SUFFOLK 193 



two feet deep, at close and regular intervals throughout a whole 

 field, filled with rubble or bushes, and he derives the term " thorough- 

 drainage " from an Essex word " thorow," meaning a trench to 

 carry off the water. Ploughing was in both counties economically 

 conducted. The Suffolk swing-plough, drawn by two horses, was 

 the common implement. Oxen were seldom used : "no groaning 

 ox is doomed to labour there " is the evidence of Bloomfield. 

 Turnips and clover were firmly established as arable crops. Suffolk 

 had been for two centuries famous for its field cultivation of carrots. 

 Cabbages were a later introduction, but extensively grown. Hemp 

 was cultivated in the neighbourhood of Beccles, and hops flourished 

 round Saxmundham. In Essex a peculiar crop, grown, generally 

 together, on the same land for three years in succession, consisted 

 of caraway, coriander, and teazels. The teazels were bought by 

 woollen manufacturers, and fixed in a revolving cylinder to catch 

 the surface of bays, says, etc., and so raise the nap of cloth to the 

 required length. Suffolk was also famous for its live-stock. The 

 Suffolk Punch was a short compact horse of about fifteen hands 

 high, properly of a sorrel colour, unrivalled in its power of draught, 

 though, as Cullum wrote in 1790, " not made to indulge the rapid 

 impatience of this posting generation." In the dairy the " milch 

 kine " of Suffolk are said by Reyce (1618) to be as good as in any 

 other county, and he notes the beauty of their horns. In later 

 times the Suffolk Dun was renowned for the quantity of her milk. 

 Suffolk cheese, however, had an evil reputation. It was " so hard 

 that pigs grunt at it, dogs bark at it, but none dare bite it." The 

 mystery of its interior inspired Bloomfield to sing of the substance, 

 which 



" Mocks the weak effort of the bending blade, 

 Or in the hog-trough rests in perfect spite, 

 Too big to swallow and too hard to bite." 



As the eighteenth century drew to a close, it was to Norfolk and 

 to Leicestershire that men had begun to look for the best examples 

 of arable and pasture farming. In both counties progress had been 

 largely due to the character of the farmers, and in Norfolk to the 

 alertness and industry of the labourers. In Norfolk, Marshall 

 (1787) says that farmers were " strongly marked by a liberality of 

 thinking," that they were men who had " mixed with what is called 

 the World, of which their leases render them independent . . . 

 occupying the same position in society as the clergy and smaller 



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