Agricultural Education. 



L57 



Me&srs. Boutledge. 



Sibson's Agricultural Chemistry .. 

 The Sheep, the Pig, and Cattle (each) 

 The Horse, by Cecil and Youatt .. 

 Small Farms, by Martin Doyle 

 Feeding and Manures, by C. Sibson 



The Horse, by Stonehenge j 18 



Mr. Mechi's How to Fann Profitably . . 



Young Farmer's Calendar ; 10 



I beg to thank the publishers of these works for so frankly giving 

 me these illustrations of the demand for agricultural works. Of 

 com'se there is a large number of other books addressed to farmers 

 which have not had anything like the success of these. But I think 

 that even here, considering the very large public to which these books 

 are addressed, and the contrasted demand for professional books in 

 the medical world, we have evidence rather of an imperfect than of a 

 satisfactory state of j)rofessional education in that of agriculture. If 

 I lay the burden of the smaliness of the reading public for agricultm'al 

 books to the discredit of professional rather than general education, it 

 is partly because that public includes 30,000 landowners as well as 

 60,000 English farmers. 



I believe the result of the whole inquiry to be, that it is the 

 promotion of professional rather than of general education, that is 

 most needed in the English agricultural world. 



I^What can the Agkicultukal Society do? 



We come lastly to consider how this Agricultural Society may best 

 promote the improvement of agricultui'al education in this country, 

 and I shall not tax your patience for more than five minutes longer. 



Three-and-twenty years ago a lecture on the importance of pro- 

 fessional education for agi'icultm-ists was delivered by the late Robert 

 Jeffries Brown of Cirencester, before the local Farmers' Club at 

 Fairford, and a most admirable restilt ensued upon his advocacy and 

 subsequent energetic labours. The Royal Agricultural College has 

 long been at once a splendid illustration of the power of a local 

 farmers' club when once its interest is aroused, and a most useful, 

 educational agency for the advantage of the agricultural community, 

 for which we have to thank, not only the intelligence and energy of 

 its founders, but much public spirit and self-denial since. I do not 

 refer at any length to its past services or present efficiency, for both 

 are related by Mr. Lawrence in the current number of our Journal, 

 but its history certainly may be cited as a proof that our local 

 farmers' clubs may be most usefully taken into alliance with this 

 Society in connexion with the work of agricultural education which is 

 before it. 



What has to be done ? There are probably 30,000 farms of 200 

 acres and upv/ards in this coimtry, occupied, therefore, by men of 



