Some Minor Uurcd Industries. 
303 
For the farther supplies of the markets of London with poultry, of which 
these countries (sic) particularly abound, they have within these few years 
found it practicable to make the geese travel on foot too, as well as the 
turkeys, and a prodigious number are brought up to London in droves from the 
farthest parts of Norfolk ; even from the fen country about Lynn, Downham, 
Wisbech, and the Washes ; as also from all the east side of Norfolk and 
Suffolk, of whom it is very frequent now to meet droves with a thousand, 
sometimes two thousand in a drove. They begin to drive them generally in 
August, by which time the harvest is almost over, and the geese may feed 
in the stubbles as they go. Thus they hold on to the end of October, when 
the roads begin to be too stiff and deep for their broad feet and short legs to 
march in. 
Besides these methods of driving these creatures on foot, they have of 
late also invented a new method of carriage, being carts formed on purpose, 
with four stories or stages to put the creatures in one above another, by 
which invention one cart will carry a very great number; and for the 
smoother going they drive with two horses abreast, like a coach, so quarter- 
ing the road for the ease of the gentry that thus ride. Changing horses, 
they travel night and day, so that they bring the fowls seventy, eighty, or 
one hundred miles in two days and one night. The horses in this new- 
fashioned voiture go two abreast, as above, but no perch below, as in a 
coach, but they are fastened together by a piece of wood lying crosswise 
upon their necks, by which they are kept even and together, and the driver 
sits on the top of the cart like as in the public carriages for the army, &c. 
In this manner they hurry away the creatures alive, and infinite numbers 
are thus carried to London every year. This method is also particular for 
the carrying young turkeys or turkey poults in their season, which are valu- 
able, and yield a good price at market ; as also for live chickens in the dear 
seasons, of all which a very great number are brought in this manner to 
London, and more prodigiously out of this country than any other part of 
England, which is the reason of my speaking of it here. 
Nothing lias been said as to poultry-farming, nor is it 
intended to advocate a business which has so often resulted 
in failure. Mr. Brooke has contrasted clearly enough the bright 
promise which these ventures hold out at the beginning with the 
disasters which usually follow. “ The fowls cease to lay, they 
require a great deal of feeding, and finally they begin to die off 
by the score. Croup and other diseases have seized them, owing 
to the foulness of the soil, and in a few months Mr. Tegetmeier 
has to record the failure of another poultry farm .” On the other 
hand, a few fowls, or if the available ground is sufficiently large, 
some dozens of them — not so numerous but that their houses and 
haunts may be kept scrupulously clean — may be made a source 
of profit. It is fowl-keeping on this modest scale that pays, and 
it is from poultry-farmers in this humble way of business that 
the higglers obtain the millions of eggs which are sent into this 
country from the small peasant farmers of France and Holland. 
W. Fream. 
12 Hanover Square, W. 
