it is stated that "Geese, turkeys, fowls, and ducks are bred in this country sufficient to supply the inhabitants, and a few to spare for the supply of the shipping from Gravesend and the Downs. The price of poultry is very much increased. Turkeys now sell as high as 6s. or 78., geese 4s. or 6s., ducks and fowls 4s. to 6s. per couple." Arthur Young considered "the climate and soil of Kent both agree with poultry," and cites a farmer "who rears and sells 140 turkeys per annum, getting 5s. per head for them."

During the prosperous times of agriculture up to 1879 not much attention was paid by farmers to poultry rearing commercially, and comparatively few were bred for market. But in the last few years, when it has been important to exhaust every possible source of profit, all kinds of poultry have been reared There are not many poultry farms; some that were started in imitation of the Sussex industries of this nature were not successful. But the industry has been principally developed by farmers in connection with their business, requiring therefore comparatively little outlay for houses, runs, and food. There are many farmers in various parts of the county, especially in the Weald and in Romney Marsh, who have undertaken the business on a somewhat large scale, and have found it profitable. Some of them breed and fatten chickens and ducks. More, however, merely breed them, and sell them when from ten to twelve weeks old to agents for poultry fattening companies in Sussex, and other places, at prices between 2s. 4d. and 3s. 4d. each for fattening. Very early spring chickens bring higher prices occasionally, for the demand is great, and generally much beyond the supply, and there is ample room for the extensive increase of this industry. An instance of success may be cited in the case of one farmer, who has a run of forty to fifty hens of the Buff Orpington breed, who sold 260 chickens, hatched at the end of January, for 3s. apiece in the second week of April. Buff Orpingtons are extensively kept, as they are liked by the crammers. At this price rearing for other persons to fatten is considered by Kent poultry breeders as the best course to adopt, and it is extending somewhat rapidly. There seem at present no signs of any falling-off in the large inquiry for young chickens for fatting, though it is difficult to see where the profit from this process comes in.

Parishes in the Weald of Kent, as Benenden, Goudhurst, Headcorn, Marden, Cranbrook and Biddenden, furnish many examples of successful poultry keeping. Individual farmers here breed as many as 1,000 chickens annually, and, as a good authority holds, some of the finest produced in England.

There are also energetic poultry breeders at Edenbridge, Ashford, Wye, and in the Isle of Thanet. Ducklings are bred to some extent in parts of the county, and geese in the meadows of the Weald and the poorer pastures of the Marsh district.

SUSSEX CATTLE.

This breed originated in Sussex, and has been adopted by breeders and graziers in the bordering county of Kent, at least in its southern and south-eastern districts, where it does remarkably well, especially in the pastures of Romney Marsh and in the meadows of the Weald. It is a hardy breed of large size, fattening rapidly and producing meat generally acceptable to butchers. The milking qualities of the Sussex cows are not remarkable, though in this respect there has recently been some improvement. Marshall holds that it is one of the purest branches of the native or ancient stock of the island, and agrees in almost every essential character with the present breeds of Devonshire and Herefordshire. But in East Sussex, Sussex cattle were of a larger type than those in the more western districts of the county, and in the adjacent parts of Kent. In the early periods Sussex cattle were principally bred and maintained for draught purposes, and were consequently high standing, rather leggy, and gaunt, as shown in the illustration (fig. 11) of a bull that belonged to Arthur Young, which he probably purchased, on his journey in search of animals of this breed, and for which, together with a cow and a two-yearold heifer, he gave fifty-seven guineas.

Some of the working oxen were enormous creatures, as, for example, the famous ox bred at Burton Park, near Petworth, at the end of the last century, which was 16 hands in height, and the length 8 feet from the beginning of the tail to the back of the horns, with a girth behind the shoulder of 10 feet, and a weight of 287 stone 4 lb. The present writer remembers having seen seven-year-old oxen of this kind fifty years ago, which came from a Sussex yoke to be fattened in Kent, not perhaps so high or so large as the Burton ox, but yet more huge than any oxen ever seen before or since, not exactly symmetrical, but having an admirable frame for piling meat

upon.

In North Devon also a somewhat similar breed was found, not so large as the West Sussex breed, but larger and coarser than the cattle in South Devon, and bred with regard to working properties. When oxen ceased to be used as workers, and the production of meat was the sole requirement, the working types of West Sussex were crossed with the less coarse meat-making types

of the Pevensey Marshes and the adjacent districts, and by careful selection and management the present Sussex animal was evolved. In the same way the two Devon types have been amalgamated into the characteristic Devons, familiar in the Showyards of the Royal Agricultural Society of the present day. The Sussex cattle have improved immensely during the last thirty years. They formerly "handled" somewhat indifferently, the skin being thick, but in the best bred Sussex animals the handling now is as mellow as that of Devons and Herefords. Buckland, writing in 1845, says:

Sufficient pains and attention had not been generally bestowed on the breeding of this variety of stock; where that has been done very superior animals have been reared, and with moderate keeping and feeding they have

evinced a tendency to early growth and maturity, together with an improved symmetry of form.

This has now been achieved, and without recourse to any fusion with other breeds, though it is sometimes said that breeders have crossed the Sussex with Devons.1

Improvement is continuous in this breed, which is highly popular in Kent. Arthur Young had a high opinion of Sussex cattle, and wrote:

The true cow has a deep red colour, the hair fine and the skin mellow, thin and soft; a small head, a fine horn, thin, clear and transparent, which should run out horizontally and afterwards turn up at the tips; the neck very thin and clean made, and straight top and bottom, with round and springing ribs, thick chine; loin, hips and rump wide; shoulder flat, legs

1 Mr. Heasinan, a noted Sussex breeder, wrote in the Field in 1872 that "great pains and attention have been taken lately in endeavouring to alter the style and type by breeding from the smallest bone with the greatest amount of flesh.'

rather short, carcass large; the tail should be level with the rump, a ridged backbone.1

It has been suggested that Arthur Young described in the above glowing terms a Sussex animal as he considered it should be, and not as it actually was at the time he wrote, and there is no doubt that his description applies equally to the Sussex herds of the best breeders of the present day. But Mr. Ellman of Glynde, the celebrated breeder of Southdown sheep, described the typical Sussex animal in very similar terms. Figures 12 and 13 represent a bull called Gondolier and a heifer named Flo, both the property of Mr. Forster, of Rumwood, Maidstone. These animals have both been successfully shown.

Sussex cattle have sold quite as well lately as other breeds, and a higher price was given for a bull of this breed in 1898 than for a bull of any other breed except Shorthorn and Aberdeen Angus. The Shorthorn bull made 215l. 5s.; the Aberdeen Angus 751. 12.; and the Sussex 731. 10s. The highest prices for Sussex cows in 1898 were 54l. 12s. and 52l. 10s., and for yearling heifers 471. 5s. At one sale of 47 head in 1898 the average price realised was 321. 5s. 7d., and at another sale 21 lots averaged 301. 8s. In August of this present year, 1899, at the late Mr. F. Warde's sale, a two-year old heifer made 84 guineas, and a cow 65 guineas, whose bull calf fetched 35 guineas Two cows at this sale brought 50 and 54 guineas respectively.

The Sussex breed lays on fat well, and comes to early maturity. Arthur Young gives an account, in his Annals of Agriculture, of an experiment in fattening Sussex cattle, showing that twelve Sussex beasts paid 67l. 17s. 11d. in sixteen weeks and two days and 41. 10s. per week and 78. 1d. per head per week, "which is certainly a noble produce, and such as a comparison with the beasts of other breeds that have been registered in this work makes every grazier anxious to produce a sort of cattle that pays so much for a small quantity of food." Looking through the records of the weights of the different breeds at the Show of the Smithfield Club in 1898, it is found that the 10 Sussex steers not above two years old averaged 12 cwt. 2 qrs. 2 lb., while 10 Shorthorn steers of the same age averaged 12 cwt. 3 qrs. 22 lb. ; 6 Hereford steers averaged 12 cwt. 1 qr. 18 lb.; 10 Aberdeen Angus steers in the same class averaged 12 cwt. 6 lb. In the class for heifers not above three years old the average weight of the four Sussex animals exhibited was 13 cwt. 3 qrs. 21 lb. Four Shorthorn heifers averaged

Annals of Agriculture, 1795, by Arthur Young, Esq.
VOL. X. T. S.-39

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