17© 



HISTORY OF AGRICULTURE 



1 2 hens and 2 cocks who had a free run in a farmyard and 

 an orchard : ^ 



He also recommends that in stocking a farm of ;^20o a year 

 the following poultry should be purchased : 



24 chickens at 4^. . . . 



20 geese i 



20 turkeys i 



24 ducks 



6 pair of pigeons 



The best way to fatten chickens, according to Bradley, was 

 to put them in coops and feed them with barley meal, being 

 careful to put a small quantity of brickdust in their water to 

 give them an appetite.^ 



On this farm were 20 acres of cow pasture besides common, 

 and this with some turnips kept 9 cows, which gave about 

 three gallons of milk a day at leasts the milk being worth 

 \d. a quart. His pigs were of the 'Black Bantham' breed, 

 which were better than the large sort common in England, for 

 the flesh was much more delicate. 



Suffolk was famous for supplying London with turkeys.^ 

 Three hundred droves of turkeys, each numbering from 300 

 to 1000, had in one season passed over Stratford Bridge on 

 the road from Ipswich to London. Geese also travelled on 

 foot to London in prodigious numbers from Norfolk, Suffolk, 

 and the Fen country, often 1,000 to 2,000 in a drove, starting 

 in August when harvest was nearly over, so that the geese 



' Bradley, General Treatise, i. no. 



^ Country Gentleman and Farmer's Director (1726), p. 7. 



' Defoe, Tour, i. 87. 



