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THE FARMER'S iMAGAZINE. 



schools of education generally had been most unsatis- 

 factory and incomplete. (Hear, hear). Moreover, 

 farmers themselves wore until recently comparatively 

 indiflFen nt with regard to the quality of the education 

 obtained by their children. That excellent man, Dean 

 Dawes, of Hereford, after remarking upon the jealousy 

 of farmers on that subject, said he felt confident that 

 the time was not far distant when the farmers of England 

 would appreciate any sound effort at education quite as 

 much as they then stood aloof from such efforts with 

 suspicion and distrust. He congratulated (he country 

 that that happy period had now arrived. As regarded 

 middle- class schools, however, which were those to which 

 farmers must chiefly look for the education of their 

 sons, it was still very difficult to find what was needed, 

 owing to the incompetency of a large proportion of the 

 teachers. Of the eighteen millions of inhabitants of tliis 

 country, fifteen were dependent upon incomes under,£100 

 a-year ; and he thought that where there was no good 

 middle-class school at hand, and there was a good national 

 school under an efficient master, farmers would in many 

 cases do well to avail themselves of the latter. The 

 rudiments of a good education might, at all events, be 

 obtained at many schools of that description. He 

 trusted that in future the young farmers of England 

 would never think their education complete unless they 

 had learnt to manage stock, how to ascertain whetiier a 

 farm was better adapted for breeding or for rearing stock, 

 and what were the true characteristics and dispositions 

 of different animals. He trusted that they would also 

 pay attention to the question of stall-feeding and to the 

 increased susceptibility to disease which it created ; and 

 that the result of their improved education would soon 

 be that the farmers of England would soon assume that 

 position in the social scale which they ought to assume, 

 and would rank among the votaries of science. 



Mr. R. Baker (Writtle) said it must be apparent to 

 everyone that the old adage that " education made the 

 man" was as applicable to agriculture as to any other 

 pursuit. The great defect was, that young men who 

 were destined for agriculture, after leaving school did 

 not devote a sufficient portion of the intermediate time, 

 before they engaged in business on their own account, to 

 their own improvement ; and the result was that, in- 

 stead of acquiring industrious habits in the avocations 

 of the farm, they neglected agriculture, and became unfit 

 for the performance of their duties. It wss essential to 

 the farmer that he should be able to tell not only how 

 much work ought to be done by a labourer in a day, but 

 whether or not work was done in a proper manner ; 

 and, if necessary, he should be able to take the tool 

 in hand himself, and show how the operation ought 

 to be performed. Moreover, he thought no young 

 man sliould suffer a day to pass over without milking some 

 record of the occurrencet of the day, including the state 

 of the weather, and any other similar subject of obser- 

 vation which might occur to him (Hear, hear). 

 Having been accustomed himself in early life to re- 

 duce his thoughts to writing, he had been struck on 

 referring to them to see how far his views many years 

 back differed from his present views ; and he believed 



that if farmers in general noted down what occurred to 

 them, they would find the past obliterated as it were, or 

 greatly modified, by the knowledge gained subsequently. 

 The acquisition of knowledge must depend very much 

 on the position and mental organization of the person 

 who wished to acquire it. All men were not endowed 

 with the Sitae faculties, and had not the same opportu- 

 nities of gaining knowledge; but it was men who 

 pondered over what came under their observation who 

 usually succeeded best in their avocations. Tusser, who 

 wrote the " Five Hundred Points of Good Husbandry," 

 when scarcely any agricultural work was in vogue, said 

 a great many thin;.'s which were as true in the present 

 day as they were when he lived ; but it was said of him 

 that he was like a whetstone to a scythe, and that while 

 he taught other men to cut, he himself remained blunt. 

 He did not succeed as a farmer; and it was remarkable 

 that the men who succeeded best as authors did not 

 succeed as farmers, farming being an occupation which 

 required the closest practical attention and more time 

 than was compatible with such employment as reading 

 and writing, (Hear, hear). Arthur Young was a very 

 good writer ; but he was considered one of the worst 

 farmers of his day, and the reason was obvious, namely, 

 that no man could be riding over the country observing 

 the farming of others without neglecting his own. ( Hear, 

 hear.) If a man wished to flourish in any business, he 

 should stick to it ; if a man was determined to succeed 

 as a farmer, he must be constantly at his post. He would 

 recommend the young farmer to keep a common-place 

 book, and to put in it headings on different subjects 

 connected with farming, including the seeding and culti- 

 vation of the land, the management of stock, and the 

 various modes of feeding stock. To these, should be 

 added a heading for meteorological observations. (Hear, 

 hear). He had himself kept an annual register of the 

 state of the weather from an early period of his life ; 

 and when men told him that never before was there such 

 a season as this, he could point them to the winter of 

 1822-23, when there were only two frosts and no snow, 

 and which was succeeded by one of the most abundant 

 harvests ever known. It was, he conceived, by such 

 means as he had mentioned, that success was most likely 

 to be attained, and he believed that in farming, as in 

 any other occupation in life, tl.ere was no difficulty that 

 might not be overcome if it were met ia a proper 

 manner. (Cheers). 



Mr. W, Walton (A.lton), said, that Mr. Bond had 

 80 ably brought forward the subject for discussion, there 

 was but little left for him to say upon it ; however, with 

 respect to agricultural education, the motto of the 

 Royal Agricultural Society up to the grand show held 

 at Southampton was, " Science with practice ;" then the 

 late noble Lord Althorp, knowing that practice was 

 the leading feature of agriculture, changed the toast to 

 " Practice with science." The managers of the Royal 

 Agricultural Society of England no doubt thought they 

 did Will when they gave the renting farmers an oppor- 

 tunity of educating their sons at a cheap rate in the 

 College at Cirencester. At first the terms were £30 

 a-year, after a few years the expense became £00, and 



