Matthew and George Culley: Farming Letters, 1798-1804

Letters from two farming brothers provide fascinating insights into rural life at the turn of the eighteenth century.

The brothers Matthew and George Culley were successful farmers in Northumberland in the late eighteenth century. They contributed greatly to the improvement of agriculture in their area and beyond, notably through sheep breeding [the ‘Culley sheep' or Border Leicester], and also by practising and inculcating the use of modern techniques of husbandry and modern crop varieties....