110 OUR ENGLISH LAND MUDDLE. 



or diseases affecting plants or live stock, and 

 the means for preventing their spread or effect- 

 ing their eradication ; the publication of reports 

 of the researches of experimental farms ; and 

 bulletins dealing with any matter of importance 

 in regard to production in Australia. 



There is, as a rule, far more pleasure to the 

 writer than profit to the reader in setting down 

 on paper an apparently perfect scheme to effect 

 this or that reform. It is like the making of 

 paper constitutions for the government of states 

 — a charming but useless intellectual exercise. 

 Perhaps the framing of a scheme of agricultural 

 education for England by an irresponsible critic 

 will be just as useless ; but the fascination of it 

 calls, and cannot be resisted. I would suggest 

 this as the outline of a scheme of agricultural 

 education, and the first foundation of rural 

 regeneration in England : — 



1. In the first place, some slight practical 

 teaching of the culture of the land should 

 be made an integral part of all elementary 

 education, even though there be a corre- 

 sponding sacrifice of "the three R's," and 

 even though an acre or so of garden plot 



