The Express.
London, England, 1850-10-22 00:00:00

TO TEN lIIDITOZ Or TIP =PAM.

WOBURN SANDS, Barr IMO.
811,—Pawing cut of Woburn Park through Ridge-
mount, you go by the park and mansion which formerly
belonged to the late Mr. Potter Mscqueen, well known
for his connexion with Australian colonisation. Thu
property has been purchased by the Bedford family,
and now forms part of the Duke's estate. The house
has been partly pulled down, and is now (coupled sa
a farm-house with • large farm, by one of the capi-
talist farmers who abound on this property.
hit beyond Ridiensount lice Bickerings Park
Farm, occupied by Mr. Samuel Bennett' extensively
known as • breeder of Leicester rams and short-horn

cattle. and as • good farmer. The soil of this farm varies
greatly, some part of it being a stroeg clay, and other
part was originally a blowing sand; the wheat plant
having been occasionally, when Mr. Bennett first en-
tered open the farm, thirty years ego, actually blown
into the next field. This be hu corrected by cover-
ing the sandy part of the farm with Leavy dress-
ings of clay, and a fertile soil, producing large
crops has been the result. The clay portion
of the farm has been drained, and the manage-
ment of the farm tells of energy and well applied
capital on the part of the tenant. Mr. Bennett keeps
a large stook of sheep, partly Leicester', which he
preserves pure, and partly Leicester ewes put to •
Southdown ram for the sake of breeding half-bred
downs which are so much liked by the butchers. This
system of breeding from Southdown sheep on one side
so greatly in vogue amongst the farmers in the home
counties, seems to be a comprimise between the
epicurean demand for delicate mutton and the ne-
cessity farmers are under of keeping stock that will
pay them some profit ; which I very much doubt
whether feeding pure Southdown sheep ever can do.
Bat the Southdown crossed either with the Cotswold
or Leicester will produce an animal having much of
the quality of mutton sought for in the down and
affording a heavier carcase and more wool. More-
over, the half-bred is usually a thriving sheep, be-
coming fat at an early age with comparatively little
care.

Like many farmers I have met with, who keep a herd
of feeding cattle as part of their stock, Mr. Bennett's
herd of short horns coceiste of ten cows, all of good
blood ; and this number of cows supplies every year
• good many beasts for feeding, which having been
bred on the farm and fed well from an early age pay
much better than anything of the same character
the farmer can buy. At all events, such a herd roa-
dies the farmer to a certain extent independent of the
chances and changes of the market for his feeding
stook. I believe that there are few farms of four
hundred acres and upwards on which such a herd
might not be profitably kept, in addition to the present
stock maintained; assuming, of course, an extension
of the practice of house feeding and rearing. Like
all the rest of the Duke of Bedford's tenants, Mr.
Bennett has a lease, but beyond that he seems to have
received little or no aid from his landlord ; for unlike
most of the duke's farms, the farm buildings at Bick-
*rings Park are inferior, and mach out of repair.
Weed, had not the tenant himself provided some-
what extensive accommodation for feeding cattle, the
farm could never have been brought into the present
high state of cultivation. Thirty years ego, when
Mr. Bennett took the farm, the barns and farm build-
ings were condemned, and an understanding, I be-
lieve an actual agreement in writing, was come to,
that the old and inferior buildirgs should be replaced
by new ones more suitable to the spirited cultivation
of the tenant; but from some cause or other, although
mince that time nearly all the rest of the home-
steads on the Bedford estate have been either
rebuilt or greatly repaired and improved, the build-
ings at Bickering. Park farm remain unimproved and
in striking contrast with the other farms on the es-
tate. Whether the tenant has been out of favour
with the proprietor or the steward, or what else may
be the cause of the exceptional state of this single
farm I know not, but left as he has been to his own
resources to provide buildings which are indispensa-
ble to high farming, Mr. Itennett's feeding-houses are
well worthy of the notice of tenants who can obtain
leases bat cannot obtain from their landlords buck
outlays in permanent improvements as the exigencies
of modern husbandry require.
There are two feeding-houses, each fitted up with
lines for twenty bullocks. One of them is circular,
the b.ixes being round the outside, and the middle
being occupied by straw and chaff houses, • boiler for
preparing the food, and so forth. A loft goes over the
whole, in which are chaff-cutters, corn-bruieers, and a
powerful cake-breaker, all driven by horse power.
The whole is built of wood, the roof being boarded
and covered with roofing felt, a style of building
which serves a tenant's purpose well enough, but
which, I confess, I should not as a landlord like to
see taker the place of the more substantial buildings
the proprietor ought to put up. This building is so
comet ucted, being merely fastened by wooden pins to
the foundation, that it is nut " affixed to the freehold,"
and might be legally removed by the tenant
should the landlord or his next tenant not like
to purchase it. The coat of this building was 4001.
The other shed for twenty besets is even less costly.
It consists of a double row of boxes with a passage
between them, each box being eight feet wide by
nine feet deep, and the upright posts which divide
the boxes support the roof. The roof is formed of
poles laid fiat soros., on which is a coverieg of bushes
highest in the middle covered over with a coat of
thatch. The boxes are sunk two feet below the pas-
sage, which I. not lofty, and in order to give head.
room to the attendants on the beasts, en arched roof
is made by ne sans of arms of trees having a natural
bend. A homely but effective feeding house has been
formed in this way for 801.
From Biclerings I went to Lidlington, a village
lying. at the foot of a steep bill formed by the &Irrupt
termination of the green sand formation and its junce
Lion with the Portland oolite. Here is a belt of fine
soil, forming stiffer arable land than that above the
bill, and very excellent pasture. Nearly all the cot-
tages in the village appear to have been lately rebuilt;
and a short distance from it there is a large Lem-
berg and farm deriding quite new, which has just
bona completed on the site of one not long since
burnt down by an incendiary fire. At Lidlington
Mr. Thomas, a gentleman of great activity occupies
a farm of the Duke of Bedford's of 900 acres,
upon which • complete set of farm buildings,
including a steam engine house, has been newly
built by the Duke. The tenant has fitted up
the steam-engine and machinery. Mr. Thomas has a
large flock of excellent sheep, being half-bred between
Cotswold and Leicester ; he has also some pure South-
downs of a superior kind. No cattle are bred on this
farm, but a large number of large Hereford and short
horn oxen are fad. Mr. Thomas is as earnest pro-
moter of education amongst the peasantry, and he has
organised a kind of industrial regiment of boys, who
work under a foreman, and are stimulated by specified
rewards for good conduct, which are retained and
laid out for the boy's own use at the end of the year.
This system is said to have been very useful to the
boys, giving them habits of steady industry, and im-
parting to them • greater degree of skill than they
would otherwise attain while it renders them very
effective workers in various departments. One pre-
caution Mr. Thomas has found it necessary. to adopt,
marks strongly the improvidence which is unfortu-
nately so charecteristic of our rural labourers. The
amount of each boy's prizes was formerly given to
himself at the end of the year, but It was found that
the parents too generally appropriated the money, in-
stead of laying it out for the boy's own nee; in con-
sequence, Mr. Thomas now requires the money to be
laid out as the boy may wish, but under his own
direction, in order that he may be sure that the boy
gets the reward he has earned by his own good
maibeilanboudljad, Nobiltrifelnisreingagmle°llauftrisposbienbisettoteoarrptbpthtlbiolesekntiligiothturiwsiocofulsoulttrtd:raeb‘:erfl
rewards. It would be enough to deliver to each boy
his own prises, std then leave him and his family to
do as they like with it. Occasional misapplications
*ere doubtless would be, and I can easily understand
bow annoying such instances must be to • master of
eitive volence ; but after all there cannot be any
on the matter's part with the application
of what ahoy has mused as his own, without a re-
striation of free many, which is injurious. I have
wetland somewhat narrowly different well intended
Rhino boalwrobsi4ig Wa to better the condition of
▪ agebaltual Moose% but I must say that I hare
maw slimairet,exisrpt giving fair wages and
assigast the opportunity of acquir-
ing skill la of any use. All that
partakes d avidly.= mart of mama raters
•