Agricultural Education. 437 



legist, the ''mystery" of agriculture, thus, has disappeared. Every- 

 thing is the illustration or fulfilment of a general law, of which 

 examples are seen everywhere. Agriculture, though not a science, 

 has thus at length become a museum, as it were, of facts, and 

 instances, and specimens, in the classification of which students of all 

 the sciences have been successfully at work, so that every part has 

 now the light upon it of well-defined relationship with scientific 

 truth. 



If this be a correct account of agriculture as a so-called science, 

 how is it with agricultm-e as a trade '? There is here an even more 

 complete explosion of the idea of anything exceptional or mysterious. 

 The relationship of the farmer to him of whom he hires the land, 

 which is his manufactory — to those of whom he purchases the labour 

 he directs — to those who are his customers — and to those of whom he 

 is the customer ^is of the ordinary kind, dependent for its establish- 

 ment and maintenance on the ordinary principles of human nature, 

 and requiring only such protection from without as an equitable 

 administration of the law secures for it. There is no longer any idea 

 that, beyond the mere administration of justice between man and man, 

 the Commonwealth requires any other protection of this or any other 

 industry than Nature has afforded it, whether in the soil, the climate 

 and position of the country, or in the energy, the conscience, and the 

 self-interest of its inhabitants. The differences, however, between 

 agriculture and other trades, though they may be only matters of 

 detail, are very considerable indeed. They are dependent mainly on 

 the fact that to the farmer harvest comes but once a year ; that, 

 indeed, several years are generally needed before the full retui-n from 

 many agricultural investments can be realised ; that landlord, tenant, 

 and labourer live here in closer conscious neiglihour-\\oodi, than land- 

 lord, tenant, and labom'er in the case of any other industry; and 

 generally, that the business is territorial, dealing with the whole 

 surface of the country, and often the sole provision for its inhabitants. 

 The perishable natm'e of agricultural products is another circumstance 

 impressing some degree of peculiarity on the trade in them. But 

 apart from, and indeed in spite of all these peculiarities, the fact 

 remains that the business relations of the farmer are and ought to be 

 similar to those of all other tradesmen, and that he depends for his 

 success in his dealings with his customers uj^on the very same qualities 

 of industry, honesty, good judgment, resolution and promptitude, 

 which secure success elsewhere. 



But agi'iculture is especially a manufacture and an art, dependent 

 on professional intelligence and skill ; and here, of course, we come 

 upon the essential features which distinguish it. I believe that I am 

 right in saying that its chief and ruling characteristics have arisen 

 from the fact that throughout it has to do with Life. A great deal 

 hinges upon this. A higher than any merely material force is indeed 

 thus wielded by the farmer, but in effect it rather limits and defines 

 his powers than widens them. He is not an artist or a mahufacturer, 

 the only limit to whose handiwork is his fancy or his will. He is 

 hedged about by forces which are beyond him to resist; many of 



