INTRODUCTION 



A FEW words may be requisite to explain the origin of the Com- 

 mission which is responsible for the following Report. In 1904. 

 Mr John Sinclair (then Member of Parliament for Forfarshire, now 

 Lord Pentland and Secretary for Scotland), formed the project of 

 sending a number of his farmer constituents to Denmark for the 

 purpose of studying the causes of the remarkable agricultural success 

 achieved by that small European State. The project grew in Mr 

 Sinclair's hands until what was first intended to be a county re- 

 presentation of farmers, became a fair representation of the whole 

 of Scotland. The results of the visit were published in a Report 

 which has enjoyed a wide circulation, and, we are encouraged to 

 believe, has spread much useful knowledge regarding the applica- 

 tion of the co-operative principle to the working-up and marketing 

 of agricultural produce. 



Two years later, 1906, Mr Sinclair was good enough to enlist the 

 interest of the Irish agricultural authorities in the work done by the 

 Commission to Denmark. A party to visit Ireland was formed, 

 including the majority of the original members with considerable 

 additions. This Irish visit was immensely facilitated by Sir Horace 

 Plunkett and the staff of the Irish Agricultural Organisation 

 Society, with the result that the observations of the Commission 

 covered practically the whole area of work so wisely and profitably 

 directed towards the revival of Irish agriculture. The Report 

 subsequently published had a cordial welcome from the press and 

 public. 1 



The project of a visit to Canada, also fostered by Mr Sinclair, 

 was more exacting than either of these. It demanded not less than 

 two months' absence from Scotland. In Canada the region to be 

 traversed was of a vastness outside European measurements, the 

 variety of conditions great. On the map Canada is a confederation 

 of States stretching from the Atlantic to the Pacific and forming 

 a political unity. Under the farmer's eye the unity disappears ; 

 the visitor passes from mixed farming to fruit culture, from fruit 

 culture to dairying, from dairying to wheat growing, and back 

 again. New experiences crowd upon him as he leaves fair Prince 

 Edward Island, with its trim fields and pleasant homesteads, for 

 the rich dyke-lands and golden orchard valleys of Nova Scotia ; or, 

 as he enters New Brunswick, with its busy port of St John, its 

 magnificent water highway and its capital of Fredericton reminiscent 

 of the Georgian era ; or, as he journeys through the alternating 

 arable and timber lands of New Brunswick to the cheese and butter- 

 making districts of Quebec ; or, as he moves from Quebec to the 



^ "Farming in Ireland." Wm. Blackwood & Sons. 6d. 



