Reference
WW2/AC2/1
Title
Indexed letterbook including, amongst other things:
- recommendation to Ministry of Agriculture & Fisheries to extend a 2 per acre grant to land not under the plough for two years since the agricultural community was in a low state;
- request to purchase vehicles for Committee use;
- inadequacy of the petrol ration given to Committee members;
- requests for release of servicemen for agricultural purposes, particularly protracted requests regarding Private Harris of 6th Battalion Bedfordshire & Hertfordshire Regiment, employee at Little Bramingham Farm, Luton;
- names of those serving on the four District Sub-Committees (Ampthill, Bedford, Biggleswade and Luton); request for a salaried Smallholdings Officer; and suggested scale of allowances for officers;
- extension of the landing ground at RAF Henlow onto agricultural land;
- inadequate petrol allowances to individuals, such as hauliers, connected with agriculture, in particular Albert Jeffs of Witt's End, Eversholt, cattle carrier;
- land drainage at Podington;
- nuisance caused by Duke of Bedford's game animals in the vicinity of Woburn;
- request for guidance regarding the allocation of benefits should the Committee take possession of a neglected farm and make it productive (Grindstone Hill Farm, Turvey);
- cases of farmers without coupons being refused petrol despite need for agricultural reasons;
- opinion of the Committee that the unemployed should be pressed into farm work;
- resolution that 50% of market garden land should be cropped for cereals, potatoes or sugar beet;
- breaking up of a site for a new school at Flitwick for agriculture;
- appointment of a Tractor Officer;
- case of a Chairman of a District Committee and questions from farmers in his district as to whether he had broken up land of his own for ploughing;
- need for central provision of fertilisers;
- possible ploughing up of National Trust land on continued Dunstable Downs;
- names and parishes of farmers on whom Orders were served;
- land ordered to be ploughed at Yielden being in a danger zone as it was adjacent to the Yielden Rifle Range;
- shortage of animal feed, particularly pig meal, in Bedfordshire;
- land to be broken up and ploughed on Shelton Hall Estate and means undertaken to do it;
- need to cleanse the channel of the Kym Brook as well as its tributaries the Keysoe, Pertenhall and Dean Brooks;
- legitimacy of the Ministry, through War Agricultural Executive Committees, issuing Directions to cleanse watercourses, but need to decide whether the riparian owners or some other body had responsibility to carry the Direction out in each case;
- applications for licences to use timber;
- letters regarding non-compliance with, appeals against and variations in land stated in Orders to Plough;
- note that all officers of the Committee were unpaid, money charged to the Ministry being for accommodation and clerical staff;
- need to thatch corn ricks to prevent rain damage.
Date free text
Sep 1939 - Feb 1940
Production date
From: 1939 To: 1940
Level of description
item