British Agricultural History Society - please send any responses in first instance to John Broad by email
 
        [July 2001] A recent query from the United States about Farm Cadets in the
       1890s has produced blank faces from those historians I have asked about it.
                      Here is an extract from the email query:
      "In his diary entries, my great uncle Stanley Pettengill speaks of being a farm cadet at
      Battleford in 1896 -97.  Born in Sevenoaks in 1876, Syanley was the son of James
       Pettengill, a London solicitor.  Except for a few years in  Sevenoaks, the Pettengills
      lived in Camberwell, Surrey.  Upon completion of his work as a farm cadet, Stanley
       emmigrated to New Zealand in 1897.  He became a successful farmer in Cheviot.

      I've been puzzling over farm cadets for so long. When I first started looking into it, I
      thought it would be easy -- a government training program for young men bound for
                 Australia, NZ, or Canada.  Or an agricultural college.
      I'm sure Battleford must have been in Sussex, near Battle.  Maybe it was simply the
          name of a farm.  Maybe a farm cadet was nothing more than a hired hand.

      Can you please tell me anything about Farm Cadets?  Was Stanley in a program set
        up by the government to train young men to become farmers in places like New
      Zealand?  Have you heard of Battleford or is it simply the name of a farm, most likely
                             in Sussex near Battle?"