58 • EXPERIMENTAL FARMS. 



64 VICTORIA, A. 1901 



put in during the last ten years had been fairly satisfactory. They had yet much to 

 learn as regarded the best lines of procedure, but they were now fairly well settled 

 down to steady work. The line they were following was to have a central establish- 

 ment with institutions distributed throughout the country. 



EXPERIMENTAL WORK IN ENGLAND. 



'At present in England there were eight or nine institutions that received govern- 

 ment support in the shape of annual grants. These grants, supplemented by local 

 support, were sufficient to provide a staff of instructors and also facilities for the 

 conduct of experiments. The educational work was carried on on orthodox lines, and 

 the experimental work was devised and carried out on the initiative of the workers 

 at the various centres. The results achieved during the last few years had been very 

 extensive and had led to a belief, on the part of the farmers themselves, that the 

 work was of distinct value to agriculture. But the value of the work was not so 

 much in the way of placing models and examples, as it were, before the farmers as in 

 making the farmers think in a way they had not thought in the past. Agriculturists, 

 if they were not stirred up in some way, were apt to go along on lines that they had 

 followed in the past. In many cases these lines were satisfactory, but also in many 

 cases it was likely that improvements would be effective. When the farmers saw that 

 these improvements led to better results, they began to devote more intelligence to 

 their business. He considered that the work done in Canada was extremely valuable 

 to farmers in this country, and he believed great advantage would be derived from 

 the improvements in the varieties of cereals and other plants. In the United States, 

 also, especially in Wisconsin, valuable work had been done in the direction of improv- 

 ing the yield of cereals, not by extending the area planted, or by better manuring 

 and tillage, but entirely by introducing new varieties of seeds. The improved yield 

 from new varieties was often perfectly astonishing, and that without any increased 

 expenditure on labour or manure. With regard to the advantages Dr. Saunders found 

 could be derived from growing clover along with cereals, that was a point that had 

 strongly been insisted upon by Humphrey Davy in the first decade of the present 

 century, but he (the speaker) did not think the practice would be of value in this 

 country, for the simple reason that the best farmers hers hoed their wheat, and of 

 course it was impossible to hoe the wheat if the clover plants were sown along with 

 it. He did not propose to make any attempt to criticise Dr. Saunders's paper, which 

 deserved the most careful consideration, and would no doubt prove of very great 

 value to English agriculturists. 



* CANADIAN FARMS. 



'Professor A. D. Hall (Piincipal of the South-Eastern Agricultural College, \Yye) 

 said that after Dr. Saunder's description of the work of the Canadian experimental 

 farms, the feeling of agriculturists in this country must be one of envy. In Canada 

 they saw a great scheme started in a great way by the government. They put the v>diole 

 thing in the hands of competent experts, and they found a great scheme started in 

 all its details suited to meet the wants of the country. Such a scheme was bound to 

 succeed. He could not help comparing that with the hapbazard, casual way in which 

 things had been done in this country. It was not that the English landowner and 

 farmer were not interested in experimental work, or had not initiated such work, 

 because some of the very best experimental work had been done for years in this 

 country by individuals and voluntary societies, but, as he had said, the work was of 

 a casual, haphazard kind. Very good work had undoubtedly been done by tbe Royal 

 A"'ricultural Society', and the establishment of the magnificent experimental institu- 



