A HISTORY OF BEDFORDSHIRE 



premises were built for the accommodation of twenty scholars, and ten scholarships, tenable for two 

 years, were offered to the county annually. The scholars, sons of agricultural labourers, were to be 

 between fifteen and seventeen years of age when they entered the college, were provided with board, 

 lodging, and instruction, and in addition received reward wages conditional upon good conduct and 

 diligence. The college was duly staffed, and there was also a farm manager. The farm consists of 

 149 acres arable and 124 acres pasture. The scholars had to spend alternate days in the field and 

 in the school. The college subsequently included a County Dairy School. 



This farm school was carried on upon these lines until 1900, when it was found that the school 

 was not fully answering the purpose intended. The labouring class whose benefit was aimed at 

 did not respond to the offer made, and of those who passed through the school some forty per cent, 

 drifted quite away from agricultural and gardening pursuits. The County Council, therefore, re- 

 organized the institution and made it a county agricultural institute for residential students at 

 moderate fees. The prospectus provided for a year's instruction divided into three terms of about 

 ten weeks each. In the summer there was also a special residential term for female students, and a 

 number of free scholarships were given. Subsequently the residential courses were changed to three 

 of five weeks each for men, and two of five weeks each for women ; and the chief aim of the 

 institute is said to be to provide practical and theoretical instruction in the arts and sciences relating 

 to agriculture by means of short residential courses. 



But the Summer College, the Farm School, and the County Agricultural Institute have not 

 been the only attempts made by the Bedfordshire County Council to give local encouragement to 

 the study of agriculture. The teachers who had attended the Summer College and had passed the final 

 examination were encouraged by the County Council to hold evening classes during the winter in 

 the villages for the study of agriculture. The result was that a large number of such classes were 

 held every winter until the Education Act of 1902 came into operation, when they were super- 

 seded by the introduction of agriculture into the curriculum of many of the village evening classes 

 which came into existence under that Act. Whilst the special agricultural classes were held, 

 the total number of students in them varied in the different years from over four hundred to over 

 eight hundred. 



In 1891-2 the County Council provided a number of lectures and demonstrations in dairying, 

 farriery, and market-gardening. In subsequent years they have arranged different lectu es and 

 instructors to give courses to teachers and others on such subjects as agricultural chemistry, botany, 

 butter-making, horticulture (with special reference to cottagers' gardening), farriery, the physiology 

 of farm animals, injurious insects, care and management of farm animals, poultry-keeping, bee-keep- 

 ing, &c. They have also borne the cost of annual competitions in such agricultural arts as ploughing, 

 sheep-shearing, hedging and ditching, stacking and thatching, and they have established experimental 

 demonstration field plots in various parts of the county. 



Agricultural co-operation has as yet been practically introduced into the county only at Silsoe, 

 where, under the auspices of the Agricultural Organization Society, there have been formed the 

 Clophill and District Agricultural Co-Operative Society, and the Clophill Agricultural Credit 

 Society. Lord Lucas, who has recently succeeded his uncle Earl Cowper in the Bedfordshire estates 

 of the latter, has exhibited a great deal of interest in these societies. The Bedfordshire Chamber of 

 Agriculture some time ago appointed a sub-committee to make inquiries and report on agricultural 

 co-operation, but nothing has yet been done by the committee. The chamber has also discussed 

 the question of establishing a bacon factory. 



Bee-keeping has been stimulated in the county by the action of a local bee-keepers' association. 



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