AGRICULTURE 



breeding is but little carried on in Middlesex, yet in no county can finer 

 dray horses be seen, or finer carriage horses. Here we have the advantage 

 of population ; the brewer is sure to have the best heavy horses by 

 emulation with a neighbouring brewery, and the county gentry are 

 numerous enough and wealthy enough to be healthily critical of each 

 others' horses. 



A very interesting poultry establishment at Lower Edmonton is kept 

 by Mr. Bowater of Bury Hall, who not only supplies birds to many 

 poultry keepers within the county, but ships to foreign countries. His 

 fowls are chiefly the Cochin China cross-breds known as Orpingtons, 

 from their first specific differentiation on Mr. Cook's farm, Tower House, 

 Orpington. The Aylesbury duck does as well in Middlesex as in the 

 adjacent county of its home, and Mr. Bowater has also had much success 

 with Toulouse geese. His prosperity is of good promise for advanced 

 and scientific poultry keeping in Middlesex generally. 



A few old agricultural words still surviving in rural Middlesex are 

 * farren ' for half an acre, ' fale ' for marshy land, and ' fat ' for eight 

 bushels, the modern quarter. The word ' ever ' as a substantive is also 

 heard, and means a sort of meadow. In Devonshire the word is in full 

 use for rye-grass, but the writer has been unable to fix a like definite 

 meaning in Middlesex. Old labourers evidently use the word with 

 reference to the general aspect of the grass. ' Fagging ' is the term 

 applied to the use of the smaller scythe, but this implement is not called 

 a fag as we might expect. 



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