CHAPTER IV. 

 PRACTICAL FARMING. 



IN almost every discussion, whatever the subject, points of 

 practice arose incidentally. This indeed was the inevitable 

 consequence when the speakers were all themselves actively 

 engaged in the business of Agriculture in one capacity or 

 another. There were among the members of the Club, and 

 sometimes among the visitors, a few agricultural drones 

 (like the President), but the large majority were working 

 bees and the influence of their occupation was apparent in 

 their utterances. The occasions on which a subject directly 

 bearing on farm practice was introduced were, however, 

 few. In looking back this may be regretted, and had the 

 Club continued it is probable that subjects of this kind 

 might have been more frequently discussed. It would have 

 been interesting to have debated such questions as the 

 manuring of land, the management of horse labour, the 

 care of a flock, the harvesting of a crop in a body where 

 the point of view of the experienced farmer and of the 

 skilled worker might have been equally expressed. 



In a discussion arising on the subject of " The Worker's 

 Share in Agriculture," a visitor (who afterwards joined as 

 a member for a time of a District Wages Committee) made 

 some remarks in the course of which he described himself 

 as " a practical farmer," with the covert but unwarrantable 

 suggestion that as such he occupied (as Mark Twain said 

 of an honest politician) a " mighty lonesome position " in 

 the meeting. He made an interesting contribution to the 

 discussion, but evidently left unsaid a good deal that was 

 in his mind, and he was asked to open a discussion at a 

 subsequent meeting. His paper, however, dealt almost 

 exclusively with wages and hours of labour, and condemned 



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