A FULL REWARD FOR THE TILLER. 379 



the latest discoveries and improvements, and giving more 

 thought, more heart, and more back to the management of 

 their properties. From drones consuming their income and 

 looking pretty on the Bench, in Society, and, maybe, in 

 Parliament, they would become active, valuable localised 

 workers for the Nation, laying up, like bees, a treasure far 

 more precious than honey. 



It is to the presence of such a class as this that Germany is 

 beholden for the rapid and very substantial advance that it has 

 made in its Agriculture. Members of that class are generally 

 well educated. They are, to use Lord Somerville's term, 

 a " reading class," who " believe in education." Their 

 position and their number — so much larger than that of 

 our squires — secure to them a powerful influence in the 

 Nation. Nevertheless they cannot disregard questions of 

 £ s. d. even in small matters. They are too big to play 

 the Tony Lumpkin, but too small to play the grand seigneur. 

 A few bushels more to the acre, some twenty or thirty gallons 

 more milk to the cow, means something to them, for 

 which they will be content to take a good deal of trouble. 

 And they identify property in land with practical Agricul- 

 ture. Among ourselves there has frequently been talk 

 about the formation of an " agricultural party " in the 

 political world. Here you have such party self-made — 

 distinctly overdone in Prussia since 1894, by royal favouring 

 practised for political purposes, but in existence and exer- 

 cising legitimate power before. The existence of such a 

 constituency imparts a distinct fillip to the taste for learning 

 the craft of Agriculture at Colleges. German Agricultural 

 Colleges are in ordinary times well filled with students — 

 the intending squires making the study popular and fashion- 

 able, and acting as bell wethers to others. Accordingly 

 the teaching there received goes out into the world broad- 

 cast, to tiller lustily, and communicate its benefits to the 

 humbler strata which, in the country, of course, are in 

 constant touch and exchange of thought with the occupants 

 of the " big house." These German squires do not go to 

 the Riviera for the winter, or to other foreign lands, and 

 to London for the season. Nor do they persuade themselves 



