EDUCATION. 149 



Returning for a moment to the point of special subjects, 

 it may be questioned whether that American speciahty, an 

 " Oflfice of Farm Management," would not be worth adopt- 

 ing in this country also. The reproach of backwardness, as 

 compared with other callings, in a knowledge and practice 

 of business methods among farmers, which in the United 

 States suggested the formation of such Office, with its 

 special schools, applies to our British farming quite as much 

 as it does to American. Indeed, it may be doubted if, once 

 farmers had got hold in their heads of the " business end " 

 of farming, having learnt to calculate what pays and what 

 does not, what pays better and what worse, a desire for 

 scientific and technical instruction would not spring up of 

 its own self. Our farmers have the reputation of possessing 

 an observant eye to the main chance. Once they came to 

 understand that there is " money " in Education, they 

 would surely not be slow to covet the latter. It is, in the 

 words of the Hon. D. F. Houston, Secretary of Agriculture 

 in the United States, the object of the Office of Farm 

 Management to teach a farmer " to know at all times just 

 how his business stands, what parts are profitable, what 

 unprofitable, and how he should direct his activities to ensure 

 success." A young man rarely learns that in private 

 apprenticeship, because that is just the part of the business 

 which the principal is careful to keep scrupulously to him- 

 self. Farming, as most of our farmers do, after a routine 

 fashion, the ordinary man cannot readily find his way to 

 such knowledge. He sees a maze before him, to which he 

 lacks the key. 



" The business of the student," so writes Mr. Houston, " is 

 to make an analysis of the operations of the farmer, to study 

 the proposed adaptation of the types of farming to local conditions, 

 such as soil and climate, the size of the market, market demand, 

 and traYisportation, the quality of the farmer's business, its 

 organisation, the distribution of farm enterprises, and the 

 costs of each sort of product. The investigations of the 

 Office of Farm Management are as yet in their infancy, and 

 there is much to learn in this branch of agricultural science ; 

 but the inquiries thus far pursued furnish a deeper insight into 

 the causes of success and failure in farming and give promise 



