These droves, as they say, generally contain from three
hundred to a thousand each drove; so that one may suppose them to
contain five hundred one with another, which is one hundred and
fifty thousand in all; and yet this is one of the least passages,
the numbers which travel by Newmarket Heath and the open country
and the forest, and also the numbers that come by Sudbury and Clare
being many more.
For the further supplies of the markets of London with poultry, of
which these countries 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 quartering the road for the ease of the
gentry that thus ride.
Pages:
75
76
77
78
79
80
81
82
83
84
85
86
87
88
89
90
91
92
93
94
95
96
97
98
99