WANT 0E THEORETICAL KNOWLEDGE. 477 



the minds of many have been opened to better doctrines, we 

 have reason to rejoice at the result, and to hope for further 

 improvement. 



The formation of a school connected with the model farm is, 

 in my opinion, the surest and speediest plan for sweeping away 

 the accumulated rubbish of errors that has, for years, obstructed 

 the path of progress, for creating a new era in our agricultural 

 economy, and for facilitating the onward march of a steady 

 reform. 



In fact, there is no systematic or rational instruction or 

 training, under our present routine, for those who look forward 

 to agricultural pursuits. A youth is, for a few years, engaged 

 as an overseer by a manager or proprietor, who takes but little 

 or no trouble in schooling his subordinate, to whom, even other- 

 wise, he could impart but very little information. If the youth 

 be active, intelligent, and honest, he turns out to be a tolerable 

 manager, after some three or four years of apprenticeship. But 

 he, like his former master, must depend upon his ignorant 

 boilerman for the quality of his sugar, and in the entire process 

 of manufacture, since that branch of plantership — the most 

 difficult and the most important — does not form a part of the 

 practical instruction of the planter, but is entirely left to the 

 blind routine of a man who knows nothing of the composition of 

 the juice of the cane, or of the effects of those agents he daily 

 employs to extract therefrom a saccharine compound. No won- 

 der, then, if we send to the home market the filthy produce 

 commonly called muscovado, with an immense percentage of 

 uncrystallised sweets in the form of molasses. We have strong 

 motives to complain of a scarcity of labour, but our opponents 

 have also some reasons for asserting that we do not know how 

 to make available the labour we already do, or can, command. 

 So long as we hoped for Protection, such language might have 

 been deemed treasonable to our own interests ; but at the present 

 crisis it is only true, and ought to have the influence of truth. 

 Skill and science are, indeed, the grand desiderata; but, if 

 science and practical instruction be not placed within the reach 

 of the planters, they certainly cannot be expected to improve by 

 mere desire or intuition. 



This, however, is not all. If we bring ourselves to inquire 

 and scrutinise, we may discover further difficulties arising either 



