14 THE FUTURE OF OUR AGRICULTURE. 



science and exceptional capacity for entering into minutiae, 

 and with tlieir own peculiar heirloom of characteristically 

 persevering labour, they have carried to a high point of 

 perfection and profitableness, they owe in like manner to 

 our Muspratt and Graham, who were the accepted standard 

 authorities on the subject some fifty and sixty years ago, 

 when I studied chemistry in the laboratories of Bonn and 

 Heidelberg, and when the great German advance began 

 to take place, with which Germany has lately dazzled the 

 world. Our Johnstone was also appreciated and studied. 

 Again, those famous " social " measures which we have 

 recently been studying and adapting — not altogether on 

 improved lines — namely. Workmen's Accident Assurance, 

 Old Age Pensions, Health Insurance, and so on, are distinct 

 developments and a State socialised reflex of our Friendly 

 Societies' practices, made general and compulsory. It is 

 a fixed belief in high quarters in Germany, submissively 

 accepted and shared by the ol ttoWol, that every popular 

 movement must be under Government leading, lest it go 

 astray and lest there be not sufficient inducement to fill 

 its ranks. That is the secret of the German reputation 

 for exceptional aptitude for " organisation." In the same 

 way that Co-operative Credit, which we are now rightly 

 longing to graft upon our Agriculture after German example, 

 and do so little effectually to acclimatise, is another 

 direct offshoot from our Friendly Societies' provident prac- 

 tice. It was on Friendly Society lines that both Raiffeisen 

 and Schulze began their beneficent work, perfecting the 

 system as they went along. In the province of Agriculture 

 there is little enough indeed in Germany which is not 

 copied from us, although, of course, there are some inter- 

 esting racy features brought forth by special circumstances 

 — such as the reclamation of peatmoss, " dry farming " 

 on the Brandenburg and Pomeranian sand, the impress- 

 ment of industrial undertakings to better utilise agricul- 

 tural produce such as potatoes and sugarbeet, and the 

 intimate interconnection of Agriculture with forestry. How- 

 ever, in their adaptation of our " Townshend and Coke " 

 Agriculture Germans have with remarkable ingenuity and 



