Agricultural Education. 455 



existing numLcr — and I will endeavour to make tlie list complete 

 before sending it to Mr. Hall Dare, in case for this or any otlier 

 purpose of communication ■\vitli the great body of English farmers it 

 should be found useful here. 



Sales of Books. 



Of the question of the sale of agricultural books — which, of course, 

 affects the question of general education quite as much as it does that 

 of professional education — -(and I hardly need say that while esjiecially 

 anxious that this Society should do what it can to promote pro- 

 fessional agricultural education, I have sought for information at 

 large, and simply in order to ascertain the truth, being most cordially 

 willing to learn the lessons which it teaches, whatever they may be) — 

 on the question of agricultural book-sales, I have information from 

 Messrs. Black, of Edinburgh ; Blackie, of Glasgow ; Fullarton, of 

 Edinburgh ; Longmans, Eidgway, and Routledge, of London. I also 

 applied for information to Messrs. Blackwood, of London and Edin- 

 burgh, who are the publishers of Mi". Henry Stejihens's valuable agri- 

 cultural works, and I am very sorry, indeed, that there is no information 

 on this subject from them, because I cannot add to my list Mr. Stephens's 

 ' Book of the Farm,' which is one of our standard agricultural works, 

 and has doubtless as large a sale as any book of its class. 



I also aj)plied to Mr. Churchill, one of the leading publishers of 

 medical works, for information on the sales of professional works to 

 the members of a thoroughly well-educated profession, that there 

 might bo some standard of comparison by which to estimate the indi- 

 cation aftbrded by the figures of the agricultural publishers. Twenty 

 years ago Mr. Churchill brought out a set of jjrofessional manuals on 

 Anatomy, Surgery, Chemistry, Physiology, Materia Medica, &c., by 

 such men as Golding Bird, Erasmus Wilson, Ferguson, Taylor, 

 Fownes, Carpenter, and Eoyle. The number in the Census-tables 

 connected with the medical profession in England and Wales in 

 18G1 was about 36,000, of whom, however, only 15,000, or there- 

 aboiits, are doctors, surgeons, and apothecaries. The sale of Mr. 

 Churchill's seven manuals up to the present time has been in all 

 103,500, or on an average 14,800 of each. They were all designed 

 for the medical student. This is the only fact which needs to be 

 quoted in illustration of the relation of the publisher to a thoroughly 

 well-educated profession. I doubt not the experience of Messrs. 

 Churchill is paralleled by that of other publishers of medical books. 



But compare this with the experience of the publishers of agri- 

 cultural books, who have so much larger a constituency. First, 

 however, what is their public ? There were 30,000 landowners, 

 250,000 farmers, 16,000 farm-bailiffs, and 500 (so-called) agricultural 

 students in England and Wales in 1861. But many landlords fill 

 public offices, under which they are returned, and so the tabular 

 number is in this case declared defective. It is probable, however, 

 that there may be some of the class who might be better described 

 as small farmers cultivating their own land, and this would, perhaps, 

 diminish the number of the class on whom the agricultural publisher 

 would depend. Take, therefore, 30,000 as the true number. As to 



