'Clafs I. OX. 17 



of cattle in his days; for after his winter provifions 

 may have been fuppofed to have been moftly con- 

 fumed, there were found, fo late as the month of 

 May in fair, the carcafes of not fewer than 80 beeves, 

 60G bacons, and 600 muttons*. The accounts of 

 the feveral great feafts in after times, afford amazing 

 inftances of the quantity of cattle that were confumed 

 in them. This was owing partly to the continued 

 attachment of the people to grazing -[- ; partly to the 

 preference, that the Eyiglijlo at all thiies gave to ani- 

 mal food. The quantity of cattle that appear from 

 the lateft calculation to have been confumed in our 

 metropolis, is a fufficient argument of the vaft plenty 

 of thefe times; particularly when we confider the 

 great advancement of tillage, and the numberlefs 

 Variety of provifions, unknown to paft ages, that are 

 now introduced into thefe kingdoms from all parts of 

 the world J. 



Our breed of horned cattle has in general been fo 

 much improved by a foreign mixture, that it is dif- 

 ficult to point out the original kind of thefe iflands. 

 Thofe which may be fuppofed to have been purely 

 Britijh are far inferior in fize to thofe on the northern 

 part of the European continent : the cattle of the high- 



* Hume' s hi^iory o^ England n. 153. 



f Polyd. Virgil' HiJI Angl. vol. i. 5. who wrote in the time of 

 Henry the 8th, fays Angli plures pecuarii quam araiores. 



X That inquifitive and accurate hiHorian Maitland furniflies us 

 with this table of the quantity of cattle that were confumed in 

 London above 30 years ago, when that city was far lefs populous 

 than it is at prefent. 

 Beeves 98,244. Pigs 52,000. 

 Calves 194,760. Sheep and } ^^ 



Hogs 186,9321 Lambs \' > "i* 



C lands 



