As part of our Farmers Will Like It project on Cornish farming heritage research volunteer Andy Blackwell takes a deep dive into a new acquisition to our library of a large set of Edwardian-era (early 20th-century) encyclopaedias dedicated to all things agriculture, donated by a local retired farmer.
Among the Museum’s library of books is an impressive 12-volume set entitled “The Standard Cyclopedia of Modern Agriculture”, which was kindly donated in 2023 by Mr Stephen Ellis, a retired farmer from Relubbus. It had belonged to his wife’s farming family. I was fortunate to be tasked with finding out more about this, it turned out to be a very interesting but challenging exercise.
The first volume of the Cyclopedia was published in 1908, and the remaining eleven followed over the next 4 years, one every 3 months. Each volume cost 8 shillings (40p). They were then reprinted a number of times over the next few years, but our copy does seem to be an original print.
The Cyclopedia was produced by the Gresham Publishing Company, a subsidiary of Blackie and Sons in Glasgow. John Blackie had started instalment and subscription selling of books in the 1870s, and he set Gresham up in 1898 to take over the subscription business of the company and also to introduce the publication of scientific and technical books.
Education for all
Subscription selling of encyclopedias often brings to mind images of unscrupulous door-to-door salesmen coaxing the gullible to part with their hard-earned money, but this was not John Blackie’s philosophy at all. He believed strongly in the concept of “Education for all”, and subscription or instalment selling was his way of putting books within the financial reach of relatively poor people.
Gresham had its head office London with branches in almost every major British city as well as branches in Canada and India. They produced many such multi-volume publications, including “The New Popular Encyclopaedia” (1900) and the Gresham Dictionary and Gresham Encyclopaedia (1910s). They continued trading until 1948.
The Glasgow Style
Books produced by Blackie and Son and Gresham in the late 19th/early 20th centuries were notable for their distinctive design. They benefitted from new technology, which made more sophisticated book binding possible, but Blackie also had book designer Talwin Morris. Morris became Blackie’s Artistic Director in 1892 and remained until his death in 1911. Morris was a disciple of “Art Nouveau” and he was associated with a group know as “The Four”, who defined “The Glasgow Style” – a Scottish expression of Art Noveau : Charles Rennie MacKintosh, Herbert MacNair and Margaret and Frances MacDonald.
The Cyclopedia with Morris’ characteristic design.
The most distinguished authorities and specialists
The Cyclopedia was edited by Professor Robert Patrick Wright, later Sir Robert after he was knighted by King George V in 1911. He was a Scottish farmer and agriculturalist, and became the first Chairman of the Scottish Board of Agriculture. He was a pioneer of the educational and research structure of Scottish farming, and under his Chairmanship the Board aimed for the growth of agricultural education until every farmer in every corner of Scotland was entitled to personal advice and instruction.
Over 250 experts contributed articles for the Cyclopedia, many authoring several over the four year period. Gresham described them as “The most distinguished authorities and specialists”. Their backgrounds and professional positions varied widely, covering every conceivable aspect of agriculture. These are far too numerous to list here but include many agricultural university lecturers and principals, breeders, scientists, chemists, horticulturalists, botanists, authors, agricultural lawyers, veterinary surgeons, meat inspectors, Agricultural Board officials, journalists … and farmers! In fact, they cover pretty well everything imaginable in this field (excuse the pun) from agriculturalists through bee-keepers and cheesemakers to zoologists.
Unsurprisingly, considering the editor’s nationality and position, several of these were from Scotland, but many were from other parts of Britain and Ireland (which was under British rule at this time). United States contributors also feature, as do several from Canada, Australia, New Zealand, South Africa and India, reflecting the English-speaking nations of the World as well as Britain’s colonial position in the early 1900s.
I searched the list for any contributors from Cornwall. I found one: the Principal of the Central Technical Schools for Cornwall in Truro. He was a soil expert and was the noted author of “The Soils of Dorset”.
The answer to everything?
Trying to describe the breadth of content of the Cyclopedia in a sentence or two is a mind-blowing task. Twelve volumes produced over 4 years, covering every conceivable aspect of farming and agriculture from “Abatement” (an unexciting start that fortunately quickly gives way to “Abattoir” and “Aberdeen Angus”) to “Zoology”. Perhaps I should quote Gresham in their initial advertising:
“It is practical
It is up to date
It is beautifully illustrated
The New Standard Cyclopedia of Modern Agriculture is the best and most comprehensive work of its kind in existence. It covers every aspect of modern farming, and should be in the hands of every farmer, land owner and estate agent.”
It is indeed beautifully illustrated. The colour and black-and-white plates in particular are little works of art in themselves, as are the four 2-dimensional illustrated anatomical “models” of the horse, cow, pig and sheep. There are numerous line drawings throughout the Cyclopedia, including many technical drawings that are remarkable in detail.
Each volume opens with a colour plateOne of the four anatomical “models”
The content is unquestionably comprehensive, a complete A to Z of everything agricultural. Mind you I pity, for example, the wheat farmer who began his subscription in 1908 and had to wait until 1911 for his key topic to be published!
A Cyclopedia owner could send a tear-off ‘Subscriber’s Coupon’ with a question about agriculture and it would be answered by an appropriate expert. Sadly I found no record of if, and how much, this service was taken up.
Science and technology
Particularly striking about it is the extent and depth of scientific and technical information, whether concerned with animals, crops, insects, diseases, or farm buildings and machinery. The review in the Illustrated Sporting and Dramatic News 19 December 1908 says “… it helps to supply that lack of scientific knowledge which prevents many a good agriculturalist from obtaining all the value which their land is capable of producing. Farmers entertain a profound contempt for ‘professors’ in every branch of agriculture …however, even the most case-hardened fine old crusted farmer may find many a ‘tip’ which will handsomely repay him for the outlay”.
Technical drawing of a refrigeration unit for milk cooling.
It does seem that a fair amount is particularly aimed at the big landowner, the gentry, the estate manager and, of course, the ‘Pleasure Farmers’ – the townsmen who “… liked to buy land in the country and do some farming there, chiefly for the pleasure of the thing.”. A good amount of advice in the books could require significant investment of resource and money.
However, I enjoyed “Master and Servant”, a comprehensive set of instructions and guidance for the master and I was delighted to see it includes dealing with drunkenness and immorality (amongst servants that is, it doesn’t deal with drunkenness or immorality on the part of the master!).
The gentry feel appears again in “Pigeons, shooting of” where it tells us “Pigeon shooting hardly comes within the true definition of sport, for all the elements of danger, hardihood and nerve are lacking.”
Global farming
Articles were contributed from abroad with sections on farming in other countries too, Denmark and Egypt for example. This reflects the editor’s aspiration to advance education in agriculture. We can even learn about camels and yaks. The Croydon Chronicle and East Surrey Advertiser October 1910 wrote: “Not only will there be considerable demand for the work overseas but in many farmers homes there are young men contemplating a trial of their fortunes outside Great Britain.”
Did farmers like it?
So, following on from this, how useful was the Cyclopedia and how well was it received among the agricultural community? Was it revolutionary? Was it the major landmark in agriculture that Gresham suggested?
Unfortunately, my search for opinions at the time failed to turn up anything from those “case-hardened fine old crusted farmers”. Several newspaper reviews, by journalists of course, albeit agricultural specialists, and plenty of advertisements from the publishers, Gresham, but no comments from the grass-roots farmers themselves. A pity, considering at that time nine tenths of farms were in the hands of tenant farmers[i].
That said, there was little advice easily available for farmers at that time. The National Farmers Union only formed in 1908, the year the Cyclopedia was first published; there was no “Farmer’s Weekly” like today, that publication only began in 1934. Sir Robert Patrick Wright’s obituary in 1938 describes the Cyclopedia as “the most useful and comprehensive reference book on agriculture so far published”. To quote the North Star and Farmers Chronicle, this was the bringing together of everything relating to modern agriculture.
Admittedly there was already “A Cyclopedia of Agriculture, Practical and Scientific” by John Chalmers Morton, originally published in 1855, with a later publication in 1885. These were produced by the same publishers, Blackie and Sons, who clearly saw the need for new, more comprehensive and modern up-to-date reference material.
Then there was Henry Stephens’ “Book of the Farm”, originally published in 1842. This had been the accepted reference for farmers for 75 years, revised in 1889 and then the fifth edition, rewritten by James MacDonald, published in 1908 (the same year as the Cyclopedia). I wonder how Gresham felt, trumpeting the coming of THE most comprehensive modern reference for farmers and agriculturalists, only to find Blackwood (Stephens’ publisher) doing much the same!
Literacy
Part of my research led me to consider literacy at this time. Sources at Cambridge University[i] and Queen Mary University London[ii] state that illiteracy at the turn of the 19th/20th century was about 3%. Of course, tenant farmers would have to be able to read to carry out everyday business and dealings with their landlord. The 1870 Education Act brought in free, compulsory state education, but farmers would often have learnt to read through the church, or in the home environment, growing up working on the farm.
What the papers said
Reviews of the Cyclopedia seem to be few and far between. The North Star and Farmers Chronicle (a Scottish weekly) sang the praises of the first four volumes on 28 July 1910:
“At present descriptions of recent discoveries and facts of agriculture are only to be found scattered through many books, pamphlets, reports etc, where they are for the most part pretty inaccessible to those engaged in ordinary farm practices. Everything relating to modern agriculture requires to be brought together in a form convenient for instant reference. This is what is intended to be done by the Standard Cyclopedia of Modern Agriculture…”
“… published to meet the demands of farmers everywhere…”
“… in the plainest possible language, and in most convenient form for ready reference.”
So, independent publicity does seem to suggest that this very wide-ranging work had something for all, from the grassroots tenant farmer to the landed gentry.
The most fruitful source from the time was the “Farmer’s Gazette and Journal of Practical Horticulture”, a Dublin-based weekly. Over the few years of the Cyclopedia’s 12-volume release they handed out a good deal of praise for it. However, they didn’t shy from handing out brickbats either. The 30th December 1911 review of Volume 12, their final review, which included a summary of all twelve volumes, accurately reflected the mix of positive and negative tones of their reviews over the years:
“The difficulties involved in such an attempt must necessarily be great, but they were greatly minimised by the existence of the original Morton’s Cyclopedia. One cannot help thinking that if the eminently practical style of that work had been followed in the present one and the requirements of the man on the land, the farmer himself, had been continually kept in view, a better work would have been produced. The choice of writers has not been too happy in all cases, some of the articles being far more suitable for purely technical publications than for a book intended primarily for farmers. Still, on the whole, the work contains very many good points and must be regarded as a welcome addition to agricultural literature.”
Knowing a number of their reviews criticised some of Wright’s choices of author, I was amused by the disapproval of the subject of horse rearing and management being written by the Professor of Meat Inspection and Pathology at Glasgow Veterinary College. “The connection savours too much of the knackers yard to be pleasant…”!
Disappointingly, nowhere did I find a comparison with Stephens’ Book of the Farm.
The Croydon Chronicle and East Surrey Advertiser 1st October 1910 welcomed the publication with great enthusiasm, but the reviewer seemed far more concerned with the logistics of the task to produce it and says little about the content and its usefulness. For instance, he points out that all the words in the full twelve volumes would stretch 20 miles if laid in one line! Maybe that meant value for money to him.
A 1911 issue of the Croydon Chronicle reviewed Volume 10 with “wealth of beautiful plates … to invest its pages with a rare artistic interest” and “…in fact, the library of no one who is interested in agriculture will be complete without it”. I wonder how convincing that was for tenant farmers?
Regrettably I haven’t been able to find overseas reviews. That would require access to the various countries’ newspaper archives. I feel fairly confident though that the Cyclopedia must have been marketed abroad, considering Gresham had a number of overseas offices, but I cannot say to what extent or how useful it was there. Gresham no longer exists, and so we can’t ask them either.
Interestingly, I found significantly more reviews of the contemporary Stephens’ Book of the Farm than I did of the Cyclopedia, and every one of these was complimentary, with only one small criticism. Mind you, the Cyclopedia cost eight shillings per volume whereas Stephens’ cost ten shillings and sixpence and was described as “expensive”. I did get the feel from the reviews that Stephens might be more practical but, not having read it and not being a farmer, I’m poorly placed to judge.
Foundation for the future?
In summary, there’s no doubt that the Cyclopedia was an excellent and very comprehensive and detailed source of instruction, guidance and reference on farming and agriculture. The quote from Sir Robert Patrick Wright’s obituary, “…the most useful and comprehensive reference book on agriculture so far published” bears this out.
Unfortunately we don’t know how many were sold, and of those what the level of usage actually was amongst the farming classes, whether big landowners, the gentry, ‘pleasure farmers’ or the biggest population – the tenant farmers. It may be that many ended up as an attractive addition to a bookcase.
However, as well as considering it as an important reference of the time, we can also look at it in the context of developments in agriculture in the early 20th century. At the time of the Cyclopedia’s publication, British agriculture was not in a particularly good state. It was still experiencing the effects of the agricultural depression of the last quarter of the 19th century, primarily caused by a dramatic fall in prices, especially grain, due to increased foreign competition and advances in transportation. This had led to widespread hardship for farmers; many had gone bankrupt.
However, at the same time significant improvements in agricultural and horticultural science and technology were being developed: application of new scientific principles to soil management, selective breeding, crop rotation; artificial fertilisers, pesticides, herbicides; more efficient designs of farming equipment, ploughs for example; advances in mechanisation, particularly of course the invention of the tractor.
The “Ivel” agricultural motor, a forerunner of the tractor.
The benefits of these advances, and regrowth in British farming didn’t really materialise until the 1930s/1940s, spurred on to a great extent by the urgent needs of the World Wars, especially the Second.
Wright was a pioneer, whose aim was to improve and promote education in farming and agriculture and to make it available to all farmers. By including new science and technology in the Cyclopedia, by encouraging exchange of information with other countries, I believe he was contributing to a culture of change that realised its benefits several years later.
Museum Research
