156 THE FUTURE OF OUR AGRICULTURE. 



distinct persons being named. There were 1,719 teachers 

 at farm-schools and " winter com-ses," and 395 itinerant 

 lecturers. 1 The result of the teaching so provided is recorded 

 in Mr. Middleton's Report. What have we to show against 

 that ? Prussia superintends its agricultural educational 

 machinery from headquarters, with the provincial Chambers 

 of Agriculture — that is, bodies composed of skilled agricul- 

 turists, with no object to keep in view except the improve- 

 ment of Agriculture — to apply its Act. We still act through 

 our County Councils, which have many other things to 

 give their attention to and the exacting argumentum ad 

 cnmienam to limit their liberality — as if Agricultural Educa- 

 tion were not a national but merely a local interest, in 

 the pursuit of which no settled plan, no uniformity were 

 called for and in which supply must be kept down. In 

 the United States, so long as the matter was left to the 

 several states — just as it was in Switzerland while the matter 

 was there left to the Cantons — Agricultural Education would 

 not advance ; the supply of money was stinted. In both 

 Republics the Federation stepped in, providing State money 

 and claiming supervision by the Federal Departments. 

 And in both countries the wagon henceforth went forward 

 at a rattling pace. In the United States not only did the 

 Federation money prove a direct benefit ; it also disposed 

 the states on their account to vote considerably larger 

 sums. And Education produced fertility out of barrenness. 

 Our problems of Agricultural Education and systematic 

 training to rural life require tackling afresh. There can 

 be no real advance till that need is supplied. It is the 

 backward farmer who holds back our Agriculture. If he 



* I take the following list of educational establishments concern- 

 ing Agriculture from the ofiScial Report of the Department for 1908, 

 which was kindly supplied to me at the time by the Prussian Minister 

 of Agriculture, Baron von Schorlemer-Lieser : 8 Agricultural 

 Colleges, 2 Forestry Colleges, 2 Veterinary Colleges, 3 superior 

 gardening schools, 18 middle and 201 lower agricultural schools 

 (farm-schools and winter schools), 17 schools for gardening, forest 

 cultivation and meadow cultivation, 14 dairy schools, 4 schools for 

 agricultural by-industries, 3 agicultural schools, 65 horse-shoeing 

 schools (for farmers) ; 7 poultry schools, 4 schools for forestry pupils, 

 98 rural householding schools ; 3,781 rural continuation schools. 



