INTRODUCTION 



Denmark, as a field of agricultural knowledge and co-operation 

 in successful practice, has often been harvested in recent years. The 

 Report of the Recess Committee, which formed the starting-point of 

 Ireland's striking industrial revival, was one of the first and best 

 store-houses of fact. In 1898, the British Dairy Farmers' Associa- 

 tion devoted a number of its Journal to narratives of a conference 

 held in Denmark and Sweden by a representative company of men 

 and women especially interested in the work of the dairy. Two years 

 later a party of farmers from Essex printed the notes taken in the 

 course of a very thorough investigation. More comprehensive than 

 either of tiiese was the inquiry set on foot by the Department of 

 Agriculture and Technical Instruction for Ireland. The Report 

 produced in 1903 by the members of the deputation appointed by 

 this Department showed a high degree of expertness, both in the 

 collection and massing of detail and in the bringing out of luminous 

 generalisations. It is the classic paper on Danish agriculture. 

 Thus a great array of testimony exists — testimony agreeing in the 

 facts, pointing the same broad truths, enforcing the same lessons. 

 To say anything new is impossible ; to say anything as well is 

 difficult. 



But printed accounts, however painstaking and vivid, must 

 always be less educative than personal observation. The agricul- 

 turist who is in the mind to borrow from Denmark's experience 

 wants to see Denmark for himself. Impressed by what had come 

 under his eyes during a visit to the little State, Captain John 

 Sinclair, member of Parliament for Forfarshire, conceived the idea 

 of organising a party from among his constituents to study, with 

 the facts and the practice before them, the root-causes of Danish 

 agricultural success. The idea grew. What was a Forfarshire 

 project developed into a project based upon a larger area of 

 interest. The Secretary for Scotland was good enough to agree 

 that a member of the Congested Districts Board and Crofters' Com- 

 mission should be invited to join the party. Members of Parliament 

 of both political connexions contributed suggestion and aid* in the 

 composition of the Commission. Landlords of extensive acres in 

 some cases became members ; in others, nominated their estate- 

 agents ; in others, gave the names of tenants. The Highland and 

 Agricultural Society and the Scottish Chamber of Agriculture 

 appointed representatives. From the Agricultural Colleges, East 

 and West, were drawn several members of the teaching staffs. 

 Apart from these, the larger number of the Commission were well- 



