The number of HORSES kept in this county amounts to upwards of 30,000, yet very few are bred in it remarkable for their quality. The cart-horses, which are compact and bony, are purchased at the different fairs in the neighbouring counties, and at the repositories and stables of the several dealers in the metropolis. Many of the horses employed by the brewers, distillers, and carmen of London, are purchased by the country dealers, at two or three years old, and sold by them to the farmers of Wiltshire, &c., who keep them on till they are about five years old, when they sell them to the London dealers at high prices, as they are then of a proper age for constant work. The coach and saddle-horses are principally bred in Yorkshire, and brought up from that and other counties by the dealers. The draught-horses belonging to the brewers, distillers, coal-merchants, &c., are scarcely to be equalled as to strength and figure.
Hogs are kept in considerable numbers, but chiefly by the malt-distillers, for whom they are purchased lean, at a large market, held on Finchley Common, and to which they are brought from Shropshire, and other distant counties : great numbers of fatted hogs are also bought for the hog-butcheries about London; and the bacon cured here is but little inferior to that brought from Wilts and Yorkshire. Much poultry is reared in Middlesex, but chiefly for home consumption; and many pigeons are also bred in this county, though more for amusement by journeymen tradesmen, than as a source of profit. Rabbits are bred by the poor people in many places in and about London; and for the most part when of sufficient age, and in proper condition, etc. sold to the poulterers, who, by this means, supply the market at those seasons when wild or warren rabbits cannot be had: the only regular warren in the county is on Uxbridge Common.
Source: Leigh's New Picture of London. Printed for Samuel Leigh, 18, Strand;
by W. Clowes, Northumberland Court. 1819