M. — AGRICULTURE. 205 



Institute; and, most important of all from the point of view of educa- 

 tion, the establishment at Cambridge of a School of Horticulture — con- 

 stitute a horticultural organisation which, if properly co-ordinated and — 

 dare I say it? — directed, should prove of supreme value to all classes 

 of intensive cultivators. To achieve that result, however, something 

 more than a permissive attitude on the part of the Ministry is required, 

 and in completing the design of it I had hoped also to remain a part 

 of that organisation long enough to assist in securing its functioning as 

 a living, plastic, resourceful, directive force — a horticultural cerebrum. 

 Thus developed, it is my conviction that this instrument is capable of 

 bringing Horticulture to a pitch of perfection undreamed of at the present 

 time either in this country or elsewhere. 



In my view Horticulture has suffered in the past because the foster- 

 ing of it was only incidental to the work of the Ministry. In spite of 

 the fact that it had not a little to bei grateful for — as for example the 

 research stations to which I have referred — Horticulture had been 

 regarded rather as an agricultural side-show than as a thing in itself. 

 My intention, in which I was encouraged by Lord Ernie, Lord Lee, 

 and Sir Daniel Hall, was to peg out on behalf of Horticulture a large 

 and valid claim and to work that claim. The conception of Horticulture 

 which I entertained was that comprised in the ' petite culture ' of the 

 French. It included crops and stock, fruit and vegetables, flower and 

 bulb and seed crops, potatos, pigs and poultiy and bees. I held 

 the view, and still hold it, that the small man's interests cannot be 

 fostered by the big man's care; that Horticulture is a thing in itself 

 and requires constant consideration by horticulturists and not occasional 

 help from agriculturally minded people, however distinguished and 

 capable. 



I had to include the pig and poultry, for the smallholder and 

 commercial grower will have to keep the one and may with profit 

 keep both, and he will have to modify his system of cultivation accord- 

 ingly. The adoption of this conception of the scope of intensive culti- 

 vation opens up an array of new problems which require investigation, 

 and it was my intention to endeavour to secure the experimental solu- 

 tion of these manv problems at the Eesearch Stations and elsewhere. 

 Beside these problems — of green manuring, cropping, horticultural 

 rotations — horticultural surveys would be made, ' primeur ' lands 

 demarked for colonisation, and existing orchard lands ascertained and 

 classified, as indeed we had begun to do in the West of England. 

 But. above all, with this measure of independence for Horticulture we, 

 having the good will and support, of the fraternity of horticulturists, 

 aimed at putting to the test the certain belief which I hold that education 

 — sympathetic and systematic — is an instrument the power of which, 

 for our purpose, scarcely vet tried, is in fact of almost infinite potency. 

 I believe with Mirabeau that, ' after bread, education is the first need 

 of the people,' and I know that the people themselves are ready to 

 receive it. 



Contrast this horticultural prospect with the fa,ot that a group of 

 ertiallholders in an outlying district informed one of my ingpcctiRXs, thjit 



