1921.] 



The Human Machine on the Land. 



27 



work cannot take the pleasure in it that his fathers did. Work 

 done in that way becomes drudgery. In saying this one 

 makes many exceptions. In all ways something is needed to 

 bring about better conditions, to give the farm workers a 

 greater interest in their occupation, and to make their lives 

 more valuable to themselves and to others. Interest must be 

 aroused in their work. They should be made skilled so that 

 they may feel an honest pride in their work just as they should 

 in their play. 



Farm Labour as Farm Athletics. — I have always regarded 

 physical work on the land as farm athletics. This is probably 

 due to the fact that I w^as reared in a district where work was 

 exceptionally skilled, and w^here competitions in the arts of 

 husbandry excited as much interest as a local football match 

 does to-day. As a native of Bedfordshire, I w^as brought up 

 under the direct influence and outcome of those remarkable 

 historic Woburn Sheep Shearings w^hich began tow^ards the 

 end of the 18th and continued into the 19th century. It w^as 

 in them that the great effort of the Dukes of Bedford, Coke of 

 Holkham, EUman of Glynde, and other giants of those days 

 set themselves to wake up farming from the sleep in which it 

 had slumbered for some centuries. These gatherings were 

 notable in that they instituted in a broad manner competitions 

 by workmen in acts of husbandry. These farm workmen's 

 competitions acquired world wide repute, and before the 19th 

 century opened a few county agricultural societies were 

 founded, mainly to further skill in farm labour. Naturally 

 from immediate association Bedfordshire inaugurated a 

 Society; and until quite late in the century when hard times in 

 farming stopped them for a few years the competitions aroused 

 the greatest enthusiasm, and exercised a big influence. 

 Farmers and workmen shared equally in the spirit of emula- 

 tion aroused, and the county ploughing matches even sixty 

 years ago were the hunting ground where the large agricul- 

 tural machinery firms sought men of skill and resource to be 

 taken to demonstrate the value of their implements and 

 machines throughout the w'orld. P^uilher, the market gardens 

 and the seed growing areas in the Biggleswade and Potton 

 district developed men of skill in the handling of tillage tools. 

 Thus, in that and the surrounding counties, arose an all round 

 skill hard to excel. Skill made woik easy to Ihe men, com- 

 petitions aroused enthusiasm, and enthu.^iasm led men to work 

 WMth a will. It was not a questioTi of ouo man l)eing sot apart 



