hence down the Thames to London. Stilton, too, had lately
become famous, and was considered the best of all, selling for the
then great price of 1s. a lb. on the farm, and 2s. 6d. at the Bell
Inn, Stilton, where it seems to have first been sold in large
quantities, though Leicestershire perhaps claims the honour of first
making it.[407]

The eastern side of Suffolk was, in Defoe's time, famous for the best
butter and perhaps the worst cheese in England, the butter being
'barrelled and sometimes pickled up in small casks'.[408]

Rabbits were occasionally kept in large numbers for profit; at Auborne
Chase in Wilts, there was a warren of 700 acres surrounded by a
wall--a most effective way of preventing escape, but somewhat
expensive. In winter time they were fed on hay, and hazel branches
from which they ate the bark. They were never allowed to get below
8,000 head, and from these, after deducting losses by poachers,
weazles, polecats, foxes, &c., 24,000 were sold annually. These
rabbits, owing to the quality of the grass, were famous for the
sweetness of their flesh. The proprietor, Mr. Gilbert, began to kill
them at Bartholomewtide, Aug. 24, and from then to Michaelmas obtained
9s. a dozen for them delivered free in London; but those from
Michaelmas to Christmas realized 10s. 6d. a dozen.

The difference in price at the two periods is accounted for by the
fact that their skins were much better in the latter, and the rabbits
kept longer when killed; they must also have been larger. A skin
before Michaelmas was only worth 1d., but soon after nearly 6d.; and
in Hertfordshire was a warren where rabbit skins with silvery hair
fetched 1s. each.[409]

We have now reached the period when the result of Jethro Tull's
labours was given to the world, his _Horse-hoeing Husbandry_ appearing
in 1733. It is no exaggeration to say that agriculture owes more to
Tull than to any other man; the principles formulated in his famous
book revolutionized British agriculture, though we shall see that it
took a long time to do it. He has indeed been described as 'the
greatest individual improver agriculture ever knew'. He first realized
that deep and perfect pulverization is the great secret of vegetable
nutrition, and was thus led on to perfect the system of drilling seed
wide enough apart to admit of tillage in the intervals, and abandoning
the wide ridges in vogue, laid the land into narrow ridges 5 feet or 6
feet wide. He was born at Bas