FORESTRY AND AGRICULTURE. 7 



prevent your wasting your money, time, and labour for no 

 profitable result, to keep men honest against their will, and 

 to hinder those most interested from destroying their own 

 property, and ruining the State's prospects of success in the 

 leading markets of the world. 



All these proposals, or some of them, may perhaps be 

 considered as a magnificent scheme of grandmotherly govern- 

 ment and political philanthrophy, and will no doubt meet 

 with the approbation of men who prefer others to do the 

 work they should be doing themselves, biit, to any practical 

 and business man, such a system must appear a? preposterous, 

 as it would, on trial, prove to be useless and impracticable. 

 What possible good can it do an agriculturist who has been 

 properly taught, trained, and knows his business to be told 

 by an expert that he has pests in his orchard ? He ought to 

 and v>'ould know that long before the expert, and have taken 

 the necessary measures to abate or eradicate them, and this 

 example applies to all the other functions to be* performed 

 by experts and baililffs in carrying out the duties suggested 

 in the foregoing so-called remedies. How many experts do 

 you imagine w^ould be required to inspect thoroughly all 

 your orchards, fruit gardens, and agricultural establishments 

 in Tasmania? Plow do you propose to inspect and examine 

 the fruit, before shipment, on the wharves? I fear that 

 there would not be the necessary room, and decidedly not 

 the necessary time to do this efficiently, and better no inspec- 

 tion than an inefficient one. Then, where are you to get 

 proper experts in sufficient numbers whose inspection and 

 knowledge can be relied upon, if you have no training 

 schools where they can study and be taught theoretically 

 and practically their duties? In my opinion there is no 

 real remedy for curing existing evils and preventing their 

 continuance and recurrence in the future but one, and that 

 is the establishment of a well-managed Tasmanian School of 

 Forestry and Agriculture. In such an institution the rising 

 generation, as well as adults occupied in these pursuits, 

 would receive an education or information which w^ould very 

 soon render expert interference supererogator}'' and unneces- 

 sary. Not alone would it be of invaluable service to these 

 two industries, but it would open a new field of enterprise 

 and remunerative employment to the youth of Tasmania. 

 As you are well aware, most of your professional and mercan- 

 tile occupations are more than sufficiently filled up at present, 

 and your young men are often obliged to go to other lands 

 to seek their living, much to the detriment of your State 

 and population, a loss which ought to be avoided, if possible. 



