Amateur Farming. 347 



he served out gratis to the poor the flour which he had bought 

 as grain in Egham market for 15s. 6fZ. a bushel.^ 



THE FIFTH DUKE OF BEDFORD. 



Associated with the records of English agriculture has been 

 the name of Russell since the days when Francis, 4th Earl of 

 Bedford, permanently benefited his country by turning into 

 agricultural land the vast swamps of the Bedford Level. The 

 Russell however who now held sway at Woburn was the 

 famous farmer, 5th Duke of Bedford, who succeeded his 

 grandfather in 1771. To him principally we owe the founda- 

 tion of the Smithfield Club, and the initiation of local agricul- 

 tural societies. He, like his sovereign, established at his 

 home one of those small experimental farms which have done 

 so much for English agriculture. ForestalHng one of the 

 chief uses of the Agricultural Show, he set to work to contrast 

 the fattening qualities of all the best known breeds of sheep 

 of his time ; and indeed the annual sheep-shearing meeting at 

 Woburn, with its prize-giving and ram-letting, partook more 

 of the nature of a modern agricultural show, than of that for 

 which it was primarily intended. There is in fact for the 

 farming world nothing about this nobleman's exemplary life 

 to which to take exception, unless it be its early close. 



Let us endeavour to convey to the imagination a sketch of 

 one of these great annual gatherings at Woburn, when, even 

 before the break of the first day's light, the roads converging 

 on the Abbey would have become congested with trafflc. Many 

 well-known celebrities, for want of an available conveyance, 

 have been compelled to stump along the dusty highways. The 

 early breakfast at 9 a.m. is over, and the great procession 

 formed, long before most of the more distant travellers have 

 reached their destination. Many arrive only to find that the 

 bulk of the guests have already left the new farmyard 

 where the five shearers are at work, and are inspecting the 

 tups to be let on hire in the exhibition room. The Duke is 

 even now distributing the various prizes to successful sheep- 



* GentleinarCs Magazine, August, 1795. 



