SCIENCE BULLETIN, No. 22. 



He had married (September, 1882) the daughter of the late Leopold Fane 

 de Salis, of Cuppacumbalong Station, and a prominent member of the State 

 Legislature. 



It was now that he occupied his leisure in the pursuit of the hobby which 

 engrossed the remainder of his life. In September, 1898, his services were 

 engaged by Mr. Sydney Smith, then Minister for Mines and Agriculture, as 

 "Wheat Experimentalist, and he continued an active officer of the Department 

 until the day of his death. 



The reasons which induced Farrer to accept this position were the 

 -opportunities of extending his experiments under different conditions as to 

 soil and climate which were afforded him by the various Experiment Farms, 

 and the facilities for growing on a larger scale established varieties for 

 distribution. 



Of his personal character, it is difficult for anyone who kiifew him at all 

 intimately to speak without danger of being accused of partisanship. Of 

 a highly sensitive disposition, he was by nature extremely reserved and 

 reticent towards comparative strangers. His health, which was always 

 somewhat delicate, accentuated this characteristic, and the fact that he had 

 to be particularly careful in the matter of food and surroundings caused him 

 to be always somewhat cljary about accepting hospitality. Those who knew 

 him intimately will always preserve the memory of one of the most high- 

 minded, generous, and unassuming of men. 



Widely-read and of broad culture and sympathies, his conversation was 

 always suggestive and invigorating, and it can be quite truly said of him 

 that no one could enjoy an intimate conversation with him without feeling a 

 better man. 



His nature was generous and sympathetic in the extreme, and none, I am 

 sure, ever applied to him for a favour which it was in his power to bestow 

 without its being granted, or ever related a story of suffering without enlisting 

 his active sympathy. 



He was a fluent and ready writer, and a master of English prose, so that 

 his letters and published writings were always delightful reading ; and even 

 his official minutes possessed some literary flavour. Simple and frugal in his 

 personal habits, he was equally direct and straightforward in his habit of 

 thought, and was incapable of anything like self-seeking. 



It was his earnest desire to benefit humanity that induced 1dm to devote 

 the leisure period of his life to the task of the improvement of wheat, and 

 to put himself once more into official harness at a comparatively advanced 

 age, in the hope of an extended field of activity and usefulness. It was this 

 knowledge of the usefulness of the work he was doing that kept his enthu- 

 siasm undiminished to the end. He loved his work. He left it reluctantly 

 at night, and looked forward eagerly to the morning that he might 

 resume it. 



Possessed by this untiring enthusiasm, he threw himself into his work with 

 an energy that was quite remarkable. In the pursuit of the matter which 

 he had in hand no labour was too exacting, no detail too insignificant. The 

 work carried out by him on his private experiment station at Lambrigg was 

 in itself sufficiently arduous. In addition to this, when he joined the 

 Department of Agriculture, he supervised personally all the work done at 

 the different farms under his direction, a task which involved the paying of 



