industries we must look to the working of the two great factors which have been of supreme importance in shaping the economic destinies of the county—namely, the drainage of the fens, and the introduction of steam as a motive power.
The enclosure of the marsh and fen for example, and the consequent absorption of the reclaimed tracts for purely agricultural purposes, considerably curtailed and finally put an end to the vast number of decoys which had given employment to hundreds of the inhabitants. Only a few winters before its accomplishment, ten decoys (of which five were in the parish of Friskney) supplied the London markets with 31,200 birds, duck, teal, and widgeon, 5,000 being considered a good season's return.[1]
On the East Fen, as many as 300 acres were formerly devoted to the cultivation of the cranberry, or 'moss-berry' as it was sometimes called, introduced at the beginning of the eighteenth century by a native of Westmorland, in which county, as well as in Cumberland, the fruit flourished to perfection. In the fens an average yield was 2,000 pecks a season, although as many as 4,000 pecks have been collected, the pickers earning 5s. a peck. The markets principally supplied were those of Cambridgeshire, Lancashire, and Yorkshire, where 'cranberry tarts' were much in vogue. Since the drainage and enclosure few have been gathered.[2]
The large flocks of geese still kept in the Fens near Spalding are but diminished reminders of that bygone trade in goose feathers to which the county owes at least one proverb, as recorded by that industrious gatherer of proverbial curiosities, John Ray: 'The Fenman's dowry is threescore geese and a pelt,' whilst Wheeler, in his History of the Fens, places the 'goose-cote,' or feather-bed, in the ranks of family heirlooms. Several persons whose yearly rental was but £5 kept 1,500 birds.[3] The geese were treated with all the honour due to a profitable investment. While the breeding season lasted they were kept in the cottages, sometimes even in the sleeping-rooms. The nests were in wicker pens, arranged in tiers, one over the other. Twice a day the gooseherd or gozzard lifted the birds off their nests, attended them to water, fed them, and afterwards replaced them on their nests. These men, it is said, knew every nest, and the bird to which each belonged, a very necessary qualification for their office, as the least error in the matter would have resulted in throwing the whole community into confusion.
The geese were plucked five times a year to increase their feathers—namely, at Lady Day, for quills and feathers; at Midsummer, Lammas, Michaelmas, and Martinmas, for feathers only. Those taken from the live birds were esteemed of better value, yielding at the rate of 3d. per head a year, whereas the yield from the feathers of a dead bird was only 6d., three giving a pound. In some places the geese were winged each quarter only, ten feathers being taken from each goose, which sold at 5s. a thousand. Plucked geese on Wildmore Fen paid in feathers 1s. a head. In 1813 goose-quills were selling at 20s. per thousand. Young records an instance of one man on the Fens whom he met in the course of his survey of the county whose stock of geese was 160. From these he reared, in good years 700, in a bad season 500, an average brood being 8. These sold at 2s., the feathers bringing 1s. 8d. The cost of keep for each bird was 2s. 6d., half of which was spent in corn, but his net profit every year amounted to £40.[4]
The trade in rabbits was no less lucrative. 'Warrens', writes Young, 'are reckoned profitable, so that some fortunes have been made on them.' One farmer whom he met at Partney Fair killed 500 couple annually on his 1,000 acres. The warrens around Brigg exceeded, in 1810, the numbers of any locality in the kingdom, whilst the dressing of the skins afforded employment to a majority of the townspeople. The silver-grey skins, which were most in demand, fetched from 8d. to 16d. each.[5] A variety of this rabbit, it may be noted in passing, is still occasionally to be met with on Santon and other commons. The fur was used for linings of robes, tippets, and muffs, the down in the manufacture of hats, though for the latter, it is worthy of note, the fur of the common rabbit was most esteemed. The trade was an ancient one. In Elizabethan times poor workmen, called 'tawyers,' were employed to collect rabbit-skins from the pedlars who hawked them about the country.[6]
Silk throwsting was carried on at Stamford in 1822 by Mr. Gouger, who employed between 300 and 400 hands, mostly women and children, the latter earning by winding from 1s. to 2s. per week, the women's wages averaging from 2s. 6d. to 4s. a week. The silk arrived in its raw state from Italy, Turkey, Spain, Bengal, and China, the latter being esteemed the best, whilst the Bengal silk was considered the worst. Postlethwayt affirms that the greater part came from Piedmont, the price paid being 20s. per lb.[7] The bales weighed from 140 to 330 lb., one of 200 lb. weight could be returned from the mill to London in about three weeks.[8] The process of 'throwing' consisted of doubling and twisting
- ↑ Oldfield, Hist. of Wainfleet, 180.
- ↑ Ibid.
- ↑ At Brothertoft a man's qualification for parochial office was the number of geese he owned (All the Year Round). Chronicles of English Counties, Nov. 1883, p. 511.
- ↑ Young, Agric. Surv. 382.
- ↑ Ibid. 890.
- ↑ Strype, ii, 274.
- ↑ Universal Dict. Trade, ii.
- ↑ Harrod, Hist. of Stamford, 429.
