Agriculture and the House of Russell. 
127 
We are tbus brouglit to the famous " farming Duke of 
Bedford," Francis, the fifth Duke, who succeeded his grand- 
father in 1771, when he was a boy of five, with, humanly- 
speaking, the prospect of a long career of usefulness. This 
hope was, however, doomed to disappointment, for his life was 
cut short, in 1802, at the early age of thirty-six; not, how- 
ever, before he had made his mark as one of tlae most eminent 
agriculturists of his time, a worthy contemporary and friend of 
Mr. Coke, of Holkham. He was instrumental in establishing 
one of the earliest of our local agricultural societies, and created 
on his estate a model farm of 300 acres, sparing no expense in 
supplying it with the most approved buildings and appliances. 
He also devoted great attention to cattle- and sheep-breeding 
in a systematic and intelligent fashion. Arthur Young, in his 
Annals of Agriadture for 1795, gives a long and precise 
account of an experiment set on foot by the Duke in 1793 for the 
purpose of comparing the growth, at different periods, of 7 
Southdowns, 7 New Leicesters, 7 Cotswolds, and 7 Wiltshires, 
all shearling wethers. In the following year the experiment 
was repeated with 80 lambs, 20 of each sort. The weights were 
first taken on November 19, after eighteen hours' fast ; then on 
Febi'uary 25, 1795, when 4 Wiltshires were discarded, it being 
found that 16 Wiltshires ate as much as 20 of the other breeds. 
The 76 remaining sheep were next weighed on May 18; then 
on July 3, after being shorn, the wool being weighed separately ; 
on October 15, when they were put to turnips ; and on February 
16, 1796, when they were sent to market. The second-best 
from each lot was killed and weighed in detail, and the rest 
were sold. The most minute particulars are given of this ex- 
periment, which is described as " a very valuable one." Its 
result was that the Leicesters were found to be the best, and 
the Wiltshires " incomparably the worst." Indeed, Mr. Young 
adds : — 
We have to regret that the twenty Wiltshires were not continued through 
the trial, because in that case the inferiority of the breed would have been 
more decisively proved ; there is reason to suppose that had this been done, 
they would never have fattened at all.' 
But one other point remained to be ascertained after the 
sheep quitted the hands of the Duke of Bedford, and this, it 
Woburn " (Trans. Soc. Arts, Vol. XXIV. p. 8, 1807). Mr. Pontey published 
two valuable books, T/ie Forest Pruner, or Timber Owners' Assistant, and Tfie 
Prvfitahle Planter, on the title-page of which he describes himself as Planter 
and Forest Pruner to the late and present Duke of Bedford. ' 
' Annals of AgricvUure, Vol. XXVI. p 435. 
