EDUCATION. 157 



were taught how to do things, he might produce twice and 

 three times what he produces now and, if war were to break 

 out again, we should be able to snap our fingers at sub- 

 marines. We complain of having only an insufficient number 

 of pupils. An earnest effort to provide more teachers and 

 to train such specially at our educational establishments 

 would of itself swell the number of agricultural students 

 to be taught and so help to make agricultural education 

 more popular, by opening up a road to a new calling to a 

 generation among which such would assuredly be appre- 

 ciated. The Board of Agriculture is worried by farmers 

 who find themselves cheated by dealers, more particularly 

 in the purchase of fertilisers, and who ask the Board to 

 take up their quarrel and publicly pillory the guilty parties. 

 The time ought to be near when farmers will know how to 

 deal with such cases themselves, providing for analyses on 

 their own account. In the meantime, in the kingdom of 

 Saxony the Agricultural Department offers to analyse goods 

 for farmers indifferently and gratuitously and to place all 

 firms which submit to such analysis upon a published list. 

 For reasons easy to divine, firms eagerly agree to such a 

 test, and the farmer is safeguarded from fraud. There are 

 other similar services to render; of which a public department 

 might temporarily take charge until farmers are educated 

 enough — for organisation, if for nothing else— to be able to 

 look after their own interests. But the greatest want at 

 present is plenty of officers, corresponding to the Dutch 

 advising consnlenien and the Belgian agronomes de I'Etat, 

 the Canadian " County Representatives," and the United 

 States " County Agents," and attractive machinery to gather 

 together farmers, upgrowing and adult, in well-mastered 

 schools, " Institutes," permanent associations, and periodical 

 gatherings. 



