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Defoe, Daniel, 1661-1731

"Tour through Eastern Counties of England, 1722"

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, etc.
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 valuable, 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.
In this part, which we call High Suffolk, there are not so many
families of gentry or nobility placed as in the other side of the
country. But it is observed that though their seats are not so
frequent here, their estates are; and the pleasure of West Suffolk
is much of it supported by the wealth of High Suffolk, for the
richness of the lands and application of the people to all kinds of
improvement is scarce credible; also the farmers are so very
considerable and their farms and dairies so large that it is very
frequent for a farmer to have 1,000 pounds stock upon his farm in
cows only.


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