Cattle and Sheep
While touring Wexford, Fraser inspected farm animals. He did not think very much of most Wexford livestock. He called the farmers' pig-rearing methods 'deficient'. He was ever more critical of their cattle rearing, which he referred to as 'miserably deficient.' However, conditions were different then and many farmers were poor, so it was difficult for them to develop more advanced ways of rearing livestock.
If you travel around Wexford today, you would see many sheep. The same was true 200 years ago, when even the smallest farmers kept a few sheep for their wool and even for their milk.
Fraser was not impressed with the sheep he found:
"Hardly anything can be worse than the common breed of sheep in the county of Wexford, long legged, narrow backed, large head, large bone and wild as deer."
Fraser was used to a different type of sheep called the Border Leicester. One of his recommendations to the Dublin Society was to encourage Wexford farmers to breed this type of sheep.
Poultry
The most common everyday livestock in the 1800s was poultry. Fraser describes how 'farmers and cottiers rear vast numbers of turkeys and fowl of every description.' He was impressed by the quality and size of the birds, and describes how they were fattened in Wexford by 'cramming with potatoes, butter milk, and barley-meal.'
The Wexford market was bursting with cheap, high-quality poultry. It was so cheap to feed chickens with a little barley meal or potato scraps that even the poorest of farmers could generally afford to do so.
Bee-keeping was also very common. Many farmers who kept bees made the drink mead from the honey.
The Wexford market was bursting with cheap, high-quality poultry. It was so cheap to feed chickens with a little barley meal or potato scraps that even the poorest of farmers could generally afford to do so.
Bee-keeping was also very common. Many farmers who kept bees made the drink mead from the honey.