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compatible witli a full realisation of tlie difficulties 

 that do at present bar its attainment. 



No magic transformation can be looked for. With 

 tlie most careful selections, the utmost energy and 

 good will on the part of all concerned, three or four 

 years must elapse before, with an organisation such as 

 is proposed, the men will have really settled down to 

 their work, and perhaps as many more before all the 

 most important problems, first demanding solution, 

 will have been clearly marked out. Even then it may 

 be only slowly that with silent fingers Science will 

 unpick the knots, and if as, without being in any de- 

 gree sanguine, we may fairly expect, after twenty 

 years' work, and after spendiug four or five mil- 

 lions, the main obstacles have been ' overcome, a 

 thorough reform effected in the agriculture of par- 

 ticular localities, and the people as a whole awakened 

 to what can be and has been done in this way, we 

 shall have made the best investment that ever landed 

 proprietor did. 



It will be said that five millions is an enormous 

 sum. But then the return is certain ; it may be more 

 or less delayed, but it is the one investment that will, 

 we know, return cent, per cent, and more. 



It is as though one were sinking a shaft to a bed of 

 coal, the depth, quality, and extent of which have 

 been ascertained. It may be far to sink, and some 

 very hard beds to cut through, and here tools break, 

 and there new tools have to be specially designed for 

 the particular work, and the water is troublesome, and 

 some of the beds very loose, and so on ; it may be a 

 little sooner or a little later, but we go on, neither 



