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First and foremost unquestionably stands the in- 

 creased provision of manure, not merely because tliis 

 is the crying want of Indian agriculture, but because 

 unavoidably any practicable arrangement for supplying 

 this want must at the same time supply many other 

 minor ones. 



We may pass lightly over the first branch of this 

 subject, viz. the introduction of the Chinese system, 

 because though by the help of combined tact and 

 authority, kindness, patience, and gentle pressure, it 

 could even now be introduced, in two or three years, 

 into any small, well-supervised tract, and thence 

 spread gradually over the entire empire, every one 

 conversant with agricultural literature knows all about 

 it, and knows that it would in India need for its sup- 

 port legislation, and a happy combination of enthu- 

 siasm and discretion in working the law, that at the 

 present time is scarcely to be expected. 



application demands a thorough knowledge of the entire environ- 

 ment of the particular position, a thorough comprehension of 

 local conditions, and we cannot usefully begin to teach natives 

 the theory of Agriculture until we have first taught ourselves (and 

 are, therefore, in a position to teach them also) how, under the 

 peculiar local conditions, of India and different provinces of 

 India, we can advantageously give practical effect to that theory. 



I may add, though this is a distinct but germane question, that 

 I believe in teaching botany, vegetable physiology, chemistry, and 

 geology in schools, and practical farming on a farm ; I do not ad- 

 vocate mixing up the two. For the great mass a practical training 

 and the enforcement, as axiomatic rules of action, of certain defi- 

 nite maxims and precepts, is all-sufficient. To the few whose 

 capacities are of a higher order, or whom circumstances call to a 

 higher position, a thorough scientific education should be first 

 given, and then they should, in a distinct institution, be ini- 

 tiated in the full practice of what they have already mastered in 

 theory. 



