u 



THE FARMER'S MAGAZINE. 



take our risk with all the boasted equanimity of 

 Englishmen. Whereas, let anything suspicious 

 break out in almost any territory on the Con- 

 tinent, and there arc Government Inspectors, and 

 Government Regulations, and Government prices, 

 preventing, restricting and buying up anything 

 like the semblance of disease, in an instant. It is 

 rather a weighty matter, and one we never ought to 

 forget, that if there be any contagious disorder to in- 

 troduce here, other Powers have done more to pre- 

 vent it than ever we have. This is the one great moral 

 of the Professor's tour. In Holland, at Rotterdam, 

 in Denmark, Mecklenburg, Berlin, Prussia, the most 

 stringent measures are adopted. In fact, we know 

 nothing like the extraordinary care taken to prevent 

 disease spreading. The only question is whether we 

 could ever be brought to submit to such a system. 



The cases, we must repeat, which the Professor con- 

 siders to be those of real mm-rain, or Rinder-pest, ap- 

 pear at the worst to be extremely doubtful. Mr. 

 Simonds' argument is, that the disease must in the 

 first instance be mtroduced. The strongest example, 

 almost the only one he had of this, was at a village 

 in Prussia, where a iarmer brought in the pest with 

 some strange beasts he had bought at a fair. These 

 had travelled a hundred miles in three days, and 

 it certainly seemed that they were attacked in the 



fir?t instance quite as much or more from fatigue 

 and exhaustion than anything else. Lord Feversham 

 and Professor Dick put two or three pertinent ques- 

 tions on this point. The Chairman, however, thotight 

 it only justice to Pi-ofessor Simonds to stop a discussion 

 that might, had time permitted, been a very interesting 

 one. According to the Professor's description the 

 disease shows itself at first in the mildest possible form ; 

 a slight twitching or shivering, just as if the animal 

 was suffering from fatigue or cold; just, in fact, as we 

 fancy he might have been. Then, as regards its 

 fatality, Mr. Simonds purchased a diseased ox for the 

 Society^-and not a bad bargain either — for the beast 

 was rapidly recovering. The Prussian Government, 

 however, in accordance with their extreme regulations, 

 thought it better he should be slaughtered; and 

 slaughtered he was accordingly. Like Csesar's wife, 

 to keep a position, all the stock abroad must be above 

 suspicion. 



We are promised that this lecture shall be given in 

 full in the next number of the Journal to be issued in 

 two or three weeks. We have so- purposely refrained 

 from entering on particulars that we might otherwise 

 have given. As regards the chief features of such a 

 mission, however, we have only to say that, while, the 

 time and trouble have by no means been misemployed, 

 our great satisfaction is to know that there is little to fear. 



AGRICULTURAL EDUCATION, 



In the preceding papers of the present series of articles 

 which we had the privilege to present to the readers of 

 the Mark Lane Express during the autumn of last 

 year, we endeavoured to show that the term ''agricultu- 

 ral education" has a much wider import — involving 

 points of high importance — than may at first sight be 

 supposed ; that, in fact, it is not the mere transmission 

 of knowledge according to the stereotyped forms of our 

 scholastic institutions, nor even the still more advanced 

 position of giving information in " special branches " 

 calculated to be of service to the agricultural labourers 

 in their every-day vocations, but that it involves pre- 

 liminary processses not usually considered cognate to 

 the subject. In the articles above alluded to, we en- 

 larged upon the necessity of attending to the physical 

 condition of the labouring population, where we really 

 wished to attain to a healthy moral and intellectual 

 development. In truth, it is impossible to overrate the 

 importance of this " preliminary process." In the great 

 work of the improvement of the labouring population of 

 our agricultural districts, it is second to none of the 

 agents we employ. It is now — or at all events should 

 be, for the remark has been made ad nauseam — trite 

 and common-place to point out that " as the dwellings 

 so the population." We require no longer to bring up 

 harrowing evidence from the purlieus of St. Giles', or 

 the dens of " Tom-all-alones," to prove the truth of 

 this. Evidence as bad and as soul-sickening as that 

 with which but a week ago Dr. Letheby startled the 



metropolitans, can be obtained with marvellously little 

 expenditure of time and trouble in nearly every town, 

 and, we may say, large village in Great Britain. What 

 we want now, is a belief, a full faith in the fact that this 

 state of matters, which now beyond all doubt and cavil 

 exists amongst us, does really interest all classes of the 

 community ; that it is not merely a calamity to be de- 

 plored, but one the recurrence of which can be averted 

 by timely interference, and the doing away of which will 

 be a positive gain, socially, politically, and commercially, 

 to the whole community — no less to the rich and well- 

 doing, than to the poor victims of the system we so 

 heartily deplore. This is what is wanted now — this 

 conviction that it affects our health, and, what to many 

 minds is of still vaster importance — our wealth. Few, 

 indeed, will be found, who have the hardihood to deny 

 that the sanitary condition of our labouring populatioti, 

 mural as well as rural, is as bad as can be; and few, 

 indeed, but who will willingly admit its evil influence in- 

 tellectually and morally on those subjected to it. But the 

 difficulty is just this, that out of all the hosts of those you 

 so readily find non-denying or admitting these great truths, 

 you will find wondrous few who take more interest in the 

 matter, or who act as if it concerned them any more than 

 in the recital of the death of the population of Poly- 

 nesian Islands by starvation, or the extermination of a 

 tribe of Red Indians by smallpox. The one is appa- 

 rently as much out of the sphere of their sympathy or 

 action as the other. It is not so, however ; and it is 



