d for
nothing.[393] Care was to be used in the choice of a cock, for those
of the game kind were to be avoided as unprofitable. Bradley gives a
balance sheet for 12 hens and 2 cocks who had a free run in a farmyard
and an orchard:[394]

DR. L s. d.

39 bushels of barley 3 5 0
Balance, profit 16 0
----------
L4 1 0
==========

CR. L s. d.

Eggs (number unfortunately not given) 1 5 0
20 early chickens at 1s. 1 0 0
72 late chickens at 6d. 1 16 0
----------
L4 1 0
==========

He also recommends that in stocking a farm of L200 a year the
following poultry should be purchased:

L s. d.

24 chickens at 4d. 8 0
20 geese 1 0 0
20 turkeys 1 0 0
24 ducks 12 0
6 pair of pigeons 12 0

The best way to fatten chickens, according to Bradley, was to put them
in coops and feed them with barley meal, being careful to put a small
quantity of brickdust in their water to give them an appetite.[395]

On this farm were 20 acres of cow pasture besides common, and this
with some turnips kept 9 cows, which gave about three gallons of milk
a day at least, the milk being worth 1d. a quart. His pigs were of the
'Black Bantham' breed, which were better than the large sort common in
England, for the flesh was much more delicate.

Suffolk was famous for supplying London with turkeys.[396] Three
hundred droves of turkeys, each numbering from 300 to 1000, had in one
season passed over Stratford Bridge on the road from Ipswich to
London. Geese also travelled on foot to London in prodigious numbers
from Norfolk, Suffolk, and the Fen country, often 1,000 to 3,000 in a
drove, starting in August when harvest was nearly over, so that the
geese might feed on the stubble by the way; 'and 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 on.' There was, howeve