AGRICULTURAL EDUCATION. 211 



to their support. They accordingly purchased the lease of a 

 farm of twenty-four acres ; and having erected and fitted up the 

 necessary buildings, they prepared for fifty children; and the 

 number of forty was soon found. The age at which children 

 are admitted is between eleven and thirteen. On account of the 

 condition of the funds, some have been admitted at an earlier 

 age, for whom the friends who placed them there were willing 

 to pay the full cost. In sex they are about equally divided. 

 The establishment is under the direction of a man and his wife, 

 who act as master and matron, and one schoolmaster, with a 

 female assistant, who manage the literary department. The 

 branches taught are &quot; reading, writing, arithmetic, English 

 grammar, geography, the catechism, and Scripture history.&quot; 

 The oldest boys are taught likewise geometry and surveying. 

 The children, with the exception of one ploughman, perform all 

 the work on the farm and in the house ; and the great object is 

 to qualify them for useful labor and domestic service by a 

 thorough knowledge of husbandry and house-work. An ad 

 dition, since the first purchase, has been made to the land, so 

 that the whole is now nearly fifty acres. &quot; The boys have 

 levelled about three hundred and forty-two perches of old 

 ditches, which intersected the land, and have thus thrown 

 nearly the whole of the farm into one field, portioned out into 

 suitable sections for a regular four-course rotation of crops. 

 They have also completed four hundred and eighty-eight 

 perches of underground drain filled with stones. The drains 

 are at the distance of from six to eight yards apart, according 

 to circumstances ; and in this way it is proposed to go gradually 

 over the farm, as time and opportunity permit.&quot; 



The average cost of supporting a child at this institution is as 

 under : 



. s. d. 



Provisions, 5 19 1J 



Clothing, 18 6| 



Salaries, 100 



Other expenses, 142 



9 1 10 



Deducting the profits on the farm, leaves 



the average cost of a pupil at . . 6 6 9 



