COMBINATION AMONG FARMERS. 101 



which he has to perform which do not call for a certain amount 

 of judgment, dexterity, and practice ; and the training and 

 management of horses, the art of ploughing, mowing, or sowing, 

 the use of a spade or fork, must be learned ; and the labourer 

 who had not learned to economise his forces, and attack his 

 work at the point of least resistance, would be worn out very 

 quickly. 



In the same connection Mr. Little quoted with approval 

 from a paper read in 1868, in which after saying that an 

 agricultural labourer is " a variously skilled workman," 

 it was observed : — 



It takes more varied qualities of mind and body to be a good 

 labourer than to be a good carpenter, whose tools keep him 

 square by line and by rule, etc., while the other makes parallel 

 lines in a field with an awkward thing called a plough, and still 

 more awkward things called horses. 



It may be said that technical education in agriculture 

 is now under the care of the county councils, but that 

 consideration, with all that hangs thereby, lies outside 

 our present scope. Co-operative education, so to speak, 

 and subsidised education are two different things. 

 Each may well supplement the other, and both may be 

 joined in one enterprise. But the essence of what is here 

 set forth is the combination of those who seek knowledge 

 for the purpose of obtaining that knowledge for them- 

 selves. 



By combination for commercial objects is meant that 

 which is commonly called " co-operation " in the conven- 

 tional acceptation of the term. And here we come to that 

 branch of the subject which perhaps is naturally 

 suggested by the heading of this paper. 



There is no doubt that agricultural co-operation is a 

 popular prescription for the ills of agriculture. It is the 

 common panacea of the man in the street. Two facts 

 have impressed themselves upon the public mind — two 

 concrete facts — the first is Brittany butter, and the second 

 is Danish butter. The magnitude of the supply, its 

 persistent growth, and it must also be said the excellence 



