AGRICULTURE 



Questioned concerning the malt tax, Mr. Bennett thought that little benefit would be derived by the 

 farmers from taking it off, except that it would enable farmers to malt inferior barleys for feeding 

 cattle. 



In 1848 a Select Committee on Agricultural Customs was appointed. The customs in question 

 were chiefly those affecting tenancy. Among the witnesses examined was Mr, William Bennett, 

 who was a land agent and land valuer in Bedfordshire, and was the occupier of between 300 and 400 

 acres under Francis the seventh Duke of Bedford. The land was naturally a weak chalk soil, and 

 was very poor when he took it. He had occupied it about sixteen years, and had very much 

 improved it by artificial dressings for turnips and wheat, and high-feeding stock. He kept a large 

 quantity of stock, and paid as much for artificial dressing as he paid for rent, or rather more. This 

 witness was more emphatic upon the question of the malt tax than was Mr. Thomas Bennett in 

 1836. In answer to the question whether he gave corn to sheep, he said that he gave them a 

 certain portion of corn, ' but I want very much to get some malt, more than anything else, to give 

 them ; if it was not for the abominable duty upon it, which I think it is about time we had done 

 with, in these free trade times.' He kept about 250 fattening sheep and the same number of ewes. 

 There was no custom in Bedfordshire that would enable the out-going tenant to claim compensation 

 for artificial dressing or drainage ; the want of this tenant-right acted hardly on the out-going tenant. 

 Some of the large landowners in the county granted leases as a protection to good farming, but 

 leases were not at all general. He suggested that leases should be renewed four years before they 

 expired. There was no ground for expecting good cultivation without a covenant as to improve- 

 ments. The general bulk of farms were let on a Michaelmas hiring ; there were still some few 

 Lady-Day hirings, but they often occasioned litigation and ill-will. He believed the original system 

 in Bedfordshire was the Lady-Day hiring with the out-going crop, the tenant being entitled to that. 

 In the Michaelmas hiring, according to the old Bedfordshire custom, the tenant-at-will would receive 

 notice in March, and then give up his fallows and a part of the farm-house, and a stable for the 

 horses of the incoming tenant, who would come in and sow the seeds himself. But the Norfolk 

 system of allowing the out-going tenant to cultivate the fallows in the usual way was superseding the 

 Bedfordshire system in the county. 



Apart from the two special features which are dealt with in the sections that follow this, there 

 is little if anything to distinguish the later history of agriculture in Bedfordshire from that in the 

 rest of the Midlands during the same period. The effect of the several general causes of depression 

 and prosperity was the same here as elsewhere. What that effect was when the cycle of bad 

 seasons, beginning in 1875, culminated in the disastrous year of 1879, may be estimated from 

 figures published by the Duke of Bedford in his Story of a Great Agricultural Estate. The total 

 rental of the duke's agricultural lands in Bedfordshire and Buckinghamshire amounted in 1878 to 

 ^43,975. In 1879, 50 per cent, of this rental had to be remitted. Larger or smaller remissions 

 had subsequently to be continuously made, until 1895, when a revaluation was made, followed by 

 a permanent reduction of rent, which left the rental at ^20,063. Corresponding remissions or 

 reductions of rent have been made in other parts of the county by the other large landowners. 

 Early in the present century the agricultural prospects became brighter, and a more sanguine 

 tone was perceptible among the farmers. 



The farmers in this county have shown themselves as ready as those in similar counties to 

 take advantage of the improvements in mechanical appliances, and have perhaps received a special 

 stimulus in that direction from the fact that Bedford has for more than half a century been the 

 locale of prominent agricultural-machinery-manufacturing works, notably Messrs. Howard & Sons' 

 Britannia Iron Works. As to the employment of artificial manures, while some hastily adopted 

 them, and lost money through lack of proper skill in their use, the majority were at first reluctant 

 to depart from their old practices ; but the serious competition in the agricultural market, and the 

 depression consequent upon bad seasons, compelled them to use the new manures. And at present, 

 even those whose advantages of soil and position might perhaps enable them to get on comfortably 

 on the old lines, show themselves eager to adopt whatever science has to offer them. About a 

 quarter of a century ago, several bad hay seasons forced attention to the practice of converting green 

 crops into ensilage ; and the practice was temporarily adopted by some farmers, and especially 

 encouraged by the Duke of Bedford. But a subsequent succession of good haying seasons has thrown 

 this subject again into the back-ground. 



Little change appears to have taken place in the size of holdings, though in some quarters 

 small holdings, especially of a market-garden class, have become a little more numerous, while on 

 the other hand there are not wanting cases in which successful farmers have eagerly added to their 

 ■ previous holdings adjacent farms as soon as the latter have become vacant. 



There is little to be added with regard to stock. The local Shire Horse Society is able to draw 

 together a fine exhibition of foals every year. As to cattle. Shorthorns predominate, taking the 

 county as a whole. But mention mtist be made of the well-known and beautiful herd of Jerseys 

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