Agricultural shows opened this week at • Oxford, . which,
as a county, is certainly not a home of lost causes agricultur- ally. It nurses at Kingston Bagpuze, on its borders, the most thorough experiment in intensive fanning that can be found in England, now that the magnificent and patriotic, but much too costly, endeavour of Sir Charles Delme Radcliffe has come to an end. At Eynsham, the new sugar factory is trying out a drying experiment that may do a great and general . service to crop-farming of all sorts. Again, the bacon factory at Kidlington, though it cannot boast of unbroken prosperity, has influenced and benefited farming as far off as Shropshire and Worcestershire. The show gave evidence of great agricultural energy within the county. Some counties will be forced to give up these separate shows and it is a lamentable fact that such a special society as con- cerns itself with the Shire horse has lost much money by its show. But signs of better times are to be traced in Oxford- shire, and among some, at any rate, of the people who assembled for a characteristic show at Wallingford - a new note of hopefulness, not diminished by a • delicious
opening to the growing season, has been heard..
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