EDUCATION. 137 



anxious for more knowledge. As long as about fifty years 

 ago there was a distinct publication issued in Germany, to 

 record the collected results obtained by experiments. It 

 bore the title of "Die Versuchsstation." Probably it is 

 pubHshed still. We have Rothamsted, Woburn, and some 

 more — but mainly for research. America has experimental 

 stations in at least fifty-one states of the Union. Research 

 ought indeed, as a matter of course, to dominate as it must 

 precede demonstration. However, without demonstration 

 research would be doomed to remain barren. Where the 

 bulk of the farming population is known to be backward, 

 demonstration certainly seems urgently needed. I endea- 

 voured to press the matter — gently, as was all that I could 

 presume to do — at the semi-annual meetings of the Royal 

 Agricultural Society some thirty years ago. I then had the 

 late Dr. Voelcker altogether on my side in this. But as 

 only an ordinary member, with only these rare occasions 

 at my command for advocacy, I could not expect that my 

 pleading would have much effect. I was then living in 

 Sussex, where through the medium of the " Sussex Associa- 

 tion for the Improvement of Agriculture," formed by the 

 late Major Warden Sergison, of Cuckfield Park, we did our 

 best to work upon the local agricultural population by such 

 means. There can be no doubt that we did some good — 

 although the experiments undertaken were not in every 

 instance shaped upon the most scientific or judicious lines. 

 Among other things we actually then introduced those 

 " manurial experimental stations " which a few years ago, 

 before the Agricultural Education Inquiry Committee, Mr. 

 Brooke Hunt so warmly recommended. Unfortunately, 

 the Association proved short-lived. It came to an end 

 upon Major Sergison's death. Our experiments were not 

 highly technical. We found on our annual visits to the 

 several stations — which visits were well attended — that 

 highly technical experiments would have been above the 

 heads of most of our public, even of men of position in the 

 agricultural world. But they were designed to bring home 

 established scientific facts — partly chemical, partly bota- 

 nical — to a public still unacquainted with them and their 



