10 THE BOOK OF THE LANDED ESTATE. 



recreation and pleasure during any leisure time he may be able to 

 command. 



On a farm of this kind, practical agriculture, or the way in which 

 crops in general are grown and live stock reared, should form the first 

 step in the ladder by which the heir to an estate is to ascend to its man- 

 agement. After having spent the leisure time of a few years in youth 

 in acquiring a knowledge of practical agriculture, he will, without doubt, 

 have his mind well established in the first principles of the art, and will 

 then be ready to enter upon a higher field of study in reference to it. 

 This field should be an Agricultural College, and there he should study 

 the various departments of science which have a bearing on agriculture 

 and successful estate-management. 



Having finished his course of education at the Agricultural College, 

 and there acquired a fair knowledge of the sciences referred to, as 

 well as seen how they are made applicable to the everyday business 

 of a landed proprietor's estate, he should return home in order still 

 further to prosecute the more practical part of his studies. Here he 

 should enter upon and carry out a course of experiments on the home 

 farm, entirely on his own account, in order to confirm his own views in 

 regard to particular points he may have taken up, whether as to crop- 

 ping or the rearing of stock, as well as to secure experience froni them. 

 And in respect to all the operations on the home farm, he should make 

 it his study to investigate them, as to whether they are being conducted 

 on the principles he was taught at college ; and if not, he should satisfy 

 himself, by both theoretical and practical means, what modes of opera- 

 tion and cultivation are the best, as may be proved from the results of 

 experiments. 



While putting his school education into practice in this way on the 

 home farm, he should also visit from time to time every farm on the 

 estate, and make himself thoroughly acquainted with all the tenants, 

 and with their respective modes of dealing with their subjects. He 

 should also visit other parts of the country from time to time, more 

 especially such as are distinguished for the excellence of their agriculture, 

 and the advanced or enlightened manner in which the general manage- 

 ment of landed property is conducted. 



This will do much to open up his mind, as it will bring the theoretical 

 part of his education into fair contact with practice in various ways ; 

 and hence his mind will be called into action on them, by comparing 

 his own views with those of practical rent-paying tenants, as exemplified 

 in the practice they respectively adopt ; and in this way he will soon be 

 able to judge for himself, from the results brought out in regard to the 

 respective cases, as to what mode is right and what is wron". 



