LATE KING AS FARMER

Nelson Evening Mail, Volume LXIX, 30 January 1936, Page 10

LATE KING AS FARMER

EXAMPLE TO THE NATION SUCCESS at SANDRINGHAM LIVESTOCK AND FLAX ll is of .course natural, it is inevitable,. wrote Sir Edward Leach Thomas last year," that the King's central and metropolitan activities should in some measure belong to the public and be directly national, while his life in his favourite country house and the county of his choice, and of his father’s, should be private, but perhaps you can not wholly understand that English quality of English kingship represented by our Royal Family, without recognition of the affairs of Sandringham and, in less salient degree, of Windsor, as well as of Buckingham Palace. Our kings have often been in some sort farmers; but the heavy horse, about which Henry VIII. took personal note, has changed from a war horse into a farm horse. Our Kings were, turning the sword into a ploughshare before the League of Nations was born ; and Sandringham has its influence on the beneficial work at Geneva. A PROMISING EXPERIMENT . The Sandringham farms are among the best and most typical in England. Norfolk was always a-" pioneer county since Coke, of Norfolk and “Turnip” Townshend' helped' to make our native stock famous and to create the rotations that refertilised the half-barren land. The King is a successor of such pioneers in several branches of their joint activities. It is at least possible that lie has added a new harvest to our island list. Flax was grown in England during the war and is, of course, the standard crop in North Ireland, where the climate exactly supplied the conditions oilec held to be necessary for maturing and separating the root fibres. Rut a synthetic climate, so to say, can now be supplied,, by science.' The flax plant grows well in Norfolk • and in order to test; we may say; to prove the appropriateness of the crop to Eastern England, King George had a flax factory built and arranged for the growing of considerable quantities of the plant on the Sandringham estate. • ' The experiment promises well, but whatever may be its future the trial is evidence that the King is a country gentleman, beneficently interested in the industry of the country, which is still the greatest of industries; and, if course, more truly productive of real wealth than any other, especially in our too-industrial civilisation. VARIED PUREBRED STOCK

Sandringham is one of the greatest, in some respects quite the greatest, of stock farms in the world. Of course, not all the land is directly farmed by the King and his Norfolk agents. A great deal is let to tenant farmers in whose fortunes the Kina takes keen personal interest. The prime distinction of the Royal farms .themselves _is the variety, ’of purebred' stock that is bred there or reared there, and it is im the direct tradition prevailing among the better' country landowners of Britain that the Royal farms particularly excel in the more typical of Norfolk and East Anglican breeds. The King’s. Redpolls, especially 'the young stock, are probably the best in the world. The breed is rapidly acquiring a world-wide reputation, and the export trade in purebred stock (in which this island has no rival) has received no little stimulus from the Royal farms within the last few years.

MANY. PRIZES AT SHOWS Most- landowners doubtless specialise in one breed. The-King,,for. national reasons, has transcended other landowners, and has been at pains to keep as many as possible of the most characteristic British breeds; and his two very different farms, at Windsor and Sandringham, are of great assistance to this end. What more typical than the Shorthorn and ; Highland . .cattle, the Southdown sheep and Shire: horse, all of which are bred in high quality on the Royal farms and make their regular appearance both,at the . agricultural shows of the summer and the fat. stock shows of the winter? The King wins every year a fair number of championships, but far more than a usual proportion of lesser prizes and commendations. This indicates the national value of the Royal farms. ■ They are not so specialistic or costly as to pul them out of fair competition with breeders and farmers who are in a- small way.; and the King comes into the lists with them, to tlieir great satisfaction, at botli the county and the Royal shows. Often the King is the chief exhibitor; and of late years produce from the Sandringham dairies as well as stock from the Windsor and Sandringham farms has appeared in the catalogue and indeed in the prize list. ' '• > “A COUNTRY GENTLEMAN” His annual visit to the Royal Show is something more than a formal occasion. The King is recognised as the head of a great, indeed the greatest industry, as an English country gentleman, if one may say so, who has organised his estate in the most ..characteristic of all agricultural counties, for the encouragement of‘production from the land. The visitor to Sandringham finds this conception carried out to the letter. The normal rents are asked and the standard wages of the neighbourhood paid to workers oil the home farm. One difference from similar country estates- is perhaps that more care and; interest have been expended on the making of clubs for those living oil the'estate. The estate, like other great' estates, was' inherited, though the ownership is comparatively new. A great deal was done there, both' in regard to husbandry and sport and other attributes of a landed property, by King Edward, and, in a social reference, by Queen Alexandra. Within the 25 years of the King’s reign, ill spite of the interruption of the War, a great tradition has been established, and Sandringham lias become a type of the best sort of landed estate.

In more than one regard the Royal Family have acted as pioneers. The Prince of Wales (who often meets the King in close competition in the judging rings) has three farms. On one of them in the Duchy, valuable national work lias been done in the art and science of land reclamation. The tradition of royal husbandry promises to bo fruitful and' - continuous.