134 
Agriculture and the House of Russell. 
much of the celebrity that followed ; but his peculiar fondness for farming 
was not yery manifest till 1793. In July, 1795, I passed four days at 
Woburn, and then found many signs of a decided attention to agricultural 
pursuits. The first sheep-shearing celebrated by a numerous company was 
in June, 1797, and continued to be held in the same month every succeeding 
year, but with greater increasing numbers and eclat, till it became at last 
by far the most respectable agricultural meeting ever seen in England — 
that is, in the world — attended by nobility, gentry, farmers, and graziers, 
from various parts of the three kingdoms, from many countries in Europe, 
and also from America. Through all this period the Duke was advancing 
rapidly the improvement of his great farm ; increasing and wonderfully 
ameliorating the breeds of live-stock, in which he was singularly skilled, and 
highly successful in all his exertions. His system of irrigation was con- 
ducted with great felicity of invention, and executed with uncommon energy. 
In order that his experiments might be more varied and extensive, 
and applicable to a more general utility, he engaged a gentleman of most 
respectable talents to superintend the whole ; iixed the plan of an establish- 
ment for agricultural education ; arranged the idea and determined the 
execution of a botanical garden and a laboratory, that the improvement 
and cultivation of his farm might go hand-in-hand with those scientific 
inquiries which would offer the most precious opportunity to students of 
every description to avail themselves of all the assistance which liberality 
and talents could confer. Such an establishment, under the controul of a 
mind in which extent of views, clearness of understanding, and severity of 
judgment were happily combined, could not fail of proving of so decided a 
benefit to the agriculture of the whole kingdom that, much as the Duke of 
Bedford has been admired for what he effected, it may be safely asserted 
that he saw but the morning of that fame which would have attended the 
maturity of his exertions in this first and most respectable path of public 
utility. ' 
The work so well begun by the fifth Duke of Bedford was 
zealously taken up by John, the sixth Duke, who, at the sheep- 
shearing held three months after his lamented brother's death, 
gave orders that everything should be conducted as on former 
occasions, the general arrangements beiug entrusted to Lord 
Somerville and Mr. Coke, of Holkham, the former of whom 
presided at the dinners. His Grace felt, indeed, that " in the 
promotion of agriculture he was treading in the steps of ±he 
brother whom he succeeded, and whose memory he cherished 
with a degree of affection that amounted almost to veneration."^ 
Under his direction the Woburn gatherings continued for many 
years to attract agriculturists from far and near. Indeed, the 
visitors increased in numbers, for ' in 1805 there were at 
the Abbey dinners, on Monday 23G, on Tuesday 216, on Wed- 
nesday 232, and on Thursday 178. In 1810 the company in- 
' Vol. XXXIX. of the Annals of Af/riculture contains a long account of 
bis Grace's Inisbandry, iUustrated with jilans, kc, and extending over more 
than 70 pp., also from the pen of Aitliur Young. 
- "Letter on tlic late Duke of Bedford," addressed by Sir William Jackson 
Hooker to Dawson Turner, Esq. 
