240 SECTIONAL ADDRESSES. 
and to impart a background of knowledge that would enrich its life whether 
it remained in the country or went to the town. 
The pioneers of those days—Middleton, Hall, Wood, Gilchrist, Somer- 
ville, Percival, F. B. Smith—to name only a few, had a strenuous uphill 
task. There was teaching in the college to be done, field experiments 
to supervise, lectures to farmers in those pre-motor days when there were 
only open traps and long dreary waits for slow trains; often no chance 
of getting a decent meal, and, what was worse, sometimes an unsympathetic 
audience hoping that the local funny man sitting in the back row would 
be able to score off the unfortunate lecturer. People would write to the 
newspapers protesting against the idea that a college could possibly teach 
farmers anything of value. News of this got back to the universities and 
gave agricultural science a rather bad name. But the pioneers kept on 
with their struggle, and, inspired by the faith that was in them, they 
carried agricultural education through the length and breadth of the 
countryside; their teaching has become part of the light by which we 
now walk. 
Then came the system of County Agricultural Organisers. These now 
play so great a part in British agriculture that one is apt to forget that 
they began only about 1900°; with them have grown up the farm institutes, 
and now there are springing up everywhere discussion societies where 
farmers meet to discuss technical and other matters of importance. At 
first no provision was made for research ; then it was realised that agri- 
cultural education could not be carried on without research ; one could 
not go on repeating the same lectures year after year without testing the 
statements and seeking new knowledge. Research on any important 
scale became possible only after 1909, when the Development Fund of 
£2,000,000 was set up at the instance of Mr. Lloyd George for a variety 
of purposes, including research. The Development Commissioners at the 
outset adopted the wise policy of allocating the several sections of agri- 
cultural science to existing institutions, making grants on an adequate 
basis, and so ensuring a widespread interest and, perhaps more important, 
a widespread net to capture young and capable research workers. Crop 
production (soil, plant nutrition and plant pathology) was placed at 
Rothamsted, animal nutrition at Cambridge and the Rowett Institute, 
plant genetics at Cambridge and Aberystwyth, animal genetics at 
Edinburgh, agricultural botany at Cambridge, dairy research at Reading, 
fruit at Long Ashton and East Malling, economics and engineering at 
Oxford, horticulture and low temperature research at Cambridge, 
veterinary research at Cambridge and Weybridge, helminthology at the 
London School of Tropical Medicine, glasshouse horticulture at Cheshunt. 
The scheme is worked through the Ministry of Agriculture, and it is one 
of the best instances of successful combination of Government supervision 
of finance with adequate freedom of action for the research worker. The 
general result of all these activities has been that farmers have learned 
to cheapen production, to seek profitable outlets for their industry. to use 
5 The present widespread system was set up only in January 1919, when the 
Board of Agriculture, as it then was, circulated to the counties proposals for a com- 
prehensive system of agricultural education, offering to pay 80 per cent. of the 
organiser’s salary and 663 per cent. of all other approved expenditure. 
