PREFACE ix 



in any public service, have to start with the 

 agrarian mind at the length of a generation 

 farther on than it can see, with dominant vested 

 interests in the wall of prescriptive density inter- 

 vening. Experts follow each other round and 

 round, year by year, illuminating all our farm 

 assets from bulls to bees, but only to find previous 

 effort fruitless, unless among the few who can do 

 the thing for themselves. The mental " atmos- 

 phere " is not industrial, and never can be indus- 

 trial under the present scheme of supply, which 

 fortifies a triumphantly defiant ignorance by 

 means of the very funds annually voted in Parlia- 

 ment for the peasants' primary " education." 



The mischief is farther enlarged by our Irish 

 methods of criticism, always either denouncing or 

 defending the Department in absolute terms, 

 according to the gains expected or refused- The 

 expectant can see no fault, the disappointed no 

 virtue. There is never an attempt to adjust the 

 blame and to show how much of the failure is 

 inflicted on us by Ireland herself, in spite of the 

 competent and expensive men employed by the 

 Department to help us. Their failure is the 

 measure of our sense, their service to us doubled 

 the day we secure them fair play and a field as fit 

 as they could find elsewhere. Under the double 

 curse of politics at the top and the State endow- 

 ment of industrial illiteracy at the bottom, they 

 can but do their best and hold their tongues to 

 keep their posts. Above all, they must never 

 touch the main secret of their failure, but rather 



