

ENGLISH AGRICULTURE. 15 



teachers and taught in many cases, and is made to do duty 

 in the case of every question. In the most recent examin- 

 ation of the training colleges the student was asked to 

 describe the manner in which climate influences the pro- 

 ductive powers of the soil, and the answers usually contained 

 references to dormant and active constituents. He was asked 

 for indications of fertility, and as an indication of fertility we 

 have "active" constituents. He is asked the principles upon 

 which the effects of irrigation depend, and he says " a great 

 quantity of the dormant matters in the soil can be changed 

 into active." Questions relating to dung, to lime, to tillage 

 operations, to rotation, to climate, to fodder crops, to drainage 

 and all forms of land improvement are answered by repeating 

 this formula as to active and dormant plant food. So im- 

 pressed is it on the minds of students that they often neglect 

 to further describe them than as active and dormant, as " it 

 turns the dormant into active." This is teaching and learn- 

 ing in a groove with a vengeance. Farmyard dung is treated 

 of in a manner which would astonish most practical men. 

 Its temperature is to be taken; if too high it must be 

 watered, if too low it must be livened up with pitchforks; 

 all of which is outside and out of sympathy with the practice 

 of even the best farmers. 



No better guide as to the line which ought to be taken 

 by an agricultural teacher can be mentioned than the con- 

 tents of the Journals of the Royal Agricultural Society, which 

 have been published from the year 1840 down to the present 

 time. An examination of the index of the Transactions of 

 this Society will show the vast range of subjects which 

 properly come under the aegis of agriculture. The varieties 

 of all cultivated plants ; new forage plants ; the rise, progress, 

 and development of all our domesticated breeds of cattle; the 

 points of excellence in animals ; the processes of fattening ; 

 experimental results obtained from the use of various kinds 





