

ENGLISH AGRICULTURE. 9 



of implements or of farm machinery would certainly be in- 

 sisted upon by any examiner called in to test the amount 

 of agricultural knowledge possessed by a candidate for agri- 

 cultural honours. No person who is unacquainted with the 

 peculiar merits of ploughing, cultivating, harrowing, or rolling, 

 or with the various descriptions of instruments used in these 

 processes, could be looked upon as having an adequate know- 

 ledge of the principles of agricultural practices. The instru- 

 ments employed upon the farm are very numerous ; they are 

 required in the first instance for the preparation of the 

 ground, in the second place for the drilling or distribution 

 of seed, in the third place for the hoeing, or after cultivation, 

 or after treatment of growing crops, subsequently for the 

 harvesting or securing of those crops, and after that for the 

 threshing, dressing, grinding, or other processes by which 

 those crops are got up for sale, or are utilized for the feeding 

 of live stock. 



Questions connected with labour are capable of being 

 discussed and taught. They divide themselves naturally into 

 payments per man, cost per acre, and with the arrangement 

 of labour in various complicated operations. Take for example 

 the threshing of wheat, the carting of hay or corn, the use 

 of the water-drill, or even the carting out of farmyard manure. 

 Labour arrangements form a capital subject for catechetical 

 or oral instruction. Students may be asked to arrange a set 

 of men, boys, and horses for threshing, drilling, grinding, 

 chaff-cutting, pulping, or hay -making, and it must be allowed 

 that knowledge of this description will be of high value in 

 after life, whether communicated in the parish school to boys 

 who at some time will be labourers, or possibly rise to the 

 position of foremen or bailiffs; or in higher grade schools 

 where the recipients of knowledge may be land-occupiers, 

 land-owners, or land-agents. In any case no candidate could 

 for one moment be considered to be an adept in the principles 



