Farming of Bedfordshire. 29 



every form by his influence, example, and kindness, not less than 

 by his princely rewards to improving tenants. 



The County Agricultural Society was now formed, and it is 

 but justice to say has ever since been supported by the House of 

 Russell with the most liberal donations. It is also gratifying to 

 find that, within the last few years, the Society, since it com- 

 menced its perambulatory meetings, has become more healthy 

 and vigorous. There are, no doubt, in every hive some drones 

 to be found, and in every county some men without energy, 

 spirit, or enterprise, and whose principal usefulness consists in 

 making a dogged indifference to improvements the more ridiculous. 

 Such men are like accumulations on the coulter of the plough ; 

 and as time, like the ploughshare, passes along, it will doubtless 

 dash them aside. 



These Societies have been of incalculable benefit to the com- 

 munity in general, but not to any county more than Bedford- 

 shire. They have imparted a spirit of emulation to young men, 

 which has not been lost upon the present generation of farmers, 

 and which augurs well for the future. 



It will also be in the grateful recollection of not a few that the 

 farmers of this county had for many years the counsel, the kind 

 co-operation, and the living example of the late John Foster, 

 Esq., of Brickhills. He was long the connecting link between 

 the landed proprietors and the yeomen of the county, and a 

 most welcome guest at all their agricultural gatherings. Those 

 noblemen of the last generation, to whom reference has been 

 made, have not merely created a spirit of enterprise among 

 the present race of farmers : their example has been equally 

 beneficial to the nobility and gentry of the county in the present 

 day. For, while it may be questioned whether any county, 

 with few exceptions, is now better tenanted, it is equally true 

 tliat it contains a goodly array of first-class " live and let 

 live " landlords. One proof may suffice among the many that 

 might be adduced, and which must be patent to all : so changed 

 are the views of many of the landlords of the county as to the 

 propriety of preserving an enormous quantity of game, that 

 committals under the Game Laws are now little more than 

 as one to ten compared with those of thirty or forty years ago. 

 This is a fact not to be lightly estimated, for, coupled with the 

 improvement in the Poor Laws, nothing perhaps has tended 

 more to inculcate provident habits and to raise the tone of morals 

 among the labouring classes. 



