Carlisle Journal October 12th 1855 A Cumberland Patriarch

A Cumberland Patriarch

A correspondent says : - "Probably the oldest agriculturist present at the Exhibition of the Royal Agricultural Society recently held in this city, was our ancient friend MR. JOHN DODGSON, of Roantrees, Bewcastle, now in his 86th year;  and certainly few Highland chieftains, even of the olden time, could have boasted of such a "following" as accompanied him on the occasion.   At the pavilion dinner held on the show ground, he sat surrounded at the board by "trenchermen" in the fourth generation of his own descendants, the youngest being his great-grandson, a stripling of some sixteen summers old.   OLD DODGSON, as is well known, has been a remarkable man in his day, and apropos of agricultural improvement we find, in the fourth volume of the proceedings of the Board of Agriculture, so far back as 1803, two letters of his addressed to LORD SHEFFIELD, president of that board, on what seems to have been a vexed question of the day, namely, whether lime could be successfully burned with peat, in which MR. DODGSON details his own experience in a very clear and satisfactory manner."   ~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~

 

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