INTRODUCTION. 13 



of the young farmers who heard them, and more to ensure at 

 tention to this important means of agricultural improvement, 

 than all the essays on the subject which they had ever perused. 

 And the same principle might be illustrated by many other 

 lectures of the course. 



A third advantage of such conventions is to be found in the 

 illustration of the subjects presented by specimens and experi 

 ments, by drawings and models, and by living plants and ani 

 mals. This is an incalculable advantage which the private 

 library and the home study cannot furnish, and which places 

 this mode of instruction for definiteness of information immeas 

 urably above all others. Mr. Barry whittling at his pear-tree 

 before the audience, is worth a whole treatise on grafting and 

 pruning. Mr. Gold's discourse on sheep, interspersed with the 

 bleatings of his Cotswolds, and punctuated with the black noses 

 of his Southdowns, is worth a volume on mutton and wool. 



Still another advantage of such gatherings is to be found in 

 the opportunity they afford to the pupil of eliciting from his 

 instructors knowledge especially adapted to his own particu 

 lar case. Books are dumb to such inquiries, and even the elab 

 orate treatise often leaves unnoticed the particular point which 

 is essential, in order to give the rest value for any particular 

 locality. It is for this reason, as before stated, that the inquiries, 

 replies, and discussions which are regarded as essential fea 

 tures of this method of education, are also its most efficient 

 agencies of instruction. These are by no means confined to 

 the lecture-room. During such a convention every hotel and 

 boarding-house is the locality of an agricultural club, which is 

 in session during the whole of the twenty-four hours not de 

 voted to the public meetings and to sleep. 



Finally, we remark, that the mere contact with men of great 

 experience and high success in agriculture, is stimulating and 

 inspiring to the young agriculturist as no mere shadow of their 

 personality in print can possibly be. They stand before him as 

 living illustrations of the great results of fortune and of reputa* 



