LAND-AGENCY. 15 



SECTION 2. Training and Qualifications necessary in an 

 Estate Agent or Factor. 



Although the leading points of training and qualifications necessary 

 for an estate agent are to be inferred from the remarks made in the 

 foregoing section, still I think it requisite to devote a separate section to 

 the subject, in order to bring out a few particulars which require to be 

 attended to in regard to it. 



The duties of an estate agent being of a very varied character, embrac- 

 ing all the branches of rural economy, his training and qualifications 

 should be in accordance with them. He must not only be acquainted 

 with farming and forestry, but, to a certain extent, with mining and 

 quarrying, and should therefore be prepared to deal with all these 

 branches of industry with judgment and skill, keeping in view at all 

 times both the present and prospective interests of the proprietor and 

 value of the estate. 



The young man who has in view to" become a land-agent should, in 

 the first place, secure a thoroughly good general education, embracing a 

 fair knowledge of classics and mathematics. Ability to read French 

 and German correctly will enable him to avail himself of the valuable 

 works which are issued in these languages bearing on rural economy. 

 This general education being finished, so far at least as school-training is 

 concerned, he should engage himself to some high-class farmer for one 

 year not as a looker-on, but as a workman, and on the distinct under- 

 standing that he is to have a hand in all the different branches of work 

 to be performed during the year, and have liberty to attend markets, 

 sales, &c. &c., with the farmer himself. One year spent on a good farm 

 in this way, and under the superintendence of an intelligent agricul- 

 turist, willing to instruct him at all times on subjects in connection 

 with the farm, will do more to make a young man a practical farmer 

 than three years spent as an idle onlooker, sporting about on horse- 

 back, as too many young men do, who go out to learn farming with 

 the view of becoming farmers or land-agents. Having spent one year 

 on a farm in this way, the intended land-agent should remove to 

 another in a different part of the country, where the land is of a different 

 description, and the system of agriculture is somewhat different in con- 

 sequence. There also he should remain one* year, taking his part with 

 his own hands in all branches of work, and on the understanding that 



