viii PREFACE 



family, while the brilliant brothers go off in orna- 

 mental occupations which require less than half the 

 capacity of the capable farmer. It is clear that 

 our first step landward is the industrial discipline 

 of the agrarian mind, not merely for the farm, but 

 also because of the character which could be 

 developed by better farming to the advantage of 

 all other pursuits and to the credit of the nation 

 as a whole. The significance of this will be the 

 plainer when we note that about three-fourths of 

 the Irish population is always directly or indirectly 

 agrarian. What, then, would be the use of writing 

 about the agricultural industry without reference 

 to the agrarian character ? The necessity is not a 

 pleasant one, and the official may not touch it at 

 all, but if we are ever to move on, it must be 

 touched by somebody. The alternative is State 

 endowment of decay. 



Hence the great failure of the official formula, 

 at least in its chief purpose, which is the improve- 

 ment of the peasant ; the great waste of the 

 Agriculture Department, though in itself admir- 

 able, and, I believe, the most generously endowed 

 in the whole world, per unit of productive value. 

 The Department may teach agriculture, but no 

 industrial influence in existence among us is 

 permitted to prepare the agrarian mind for the 

 agricultural teaching. It is like a university 

 condemned to accept its students from the 

 primary school, and deprived even of the right to 

 prepare them for matriculation. Its teachers, now 

 well trained and the hardest workers that I know 



