114 The Board of Agriculture 



Plunkett. In this connection I may take the oppor- 

 tunity of thanking the Board of Agriculture for its 

 action, though some might call it want of action, 

 with reference to Clifton-on-Bowmout, in declining to 

 take the part that I suggested with reference to the 

 farm. This was that the Board should print a leaflet 

 on the work of the farm, and send one to each County 

 Council in order to make it known that the farm was 

 open to visitors. The Department declined with thanks, 

 on the ground that to do so would be to identify itself 

 with a system — the system being as old as agriculture, 

 though the method of carrying it out is on fresh lines. 

 Judging by the number of visitors who have arrived 

 without any aid from the Department, and who have, of 

 course, taken up much of the time of my steward in 

 showing them round the farm, it is evident that had the 

 Department adopted my suggestion we should have 

 been simply overpowered with visitors and coiTCspond- 

 ence, and I therefore take this opportunity, from a 

 personal point of view, of thanking the Department, 

 though it is not quite so clear that I have any grounds for 

 doing so on behalf of the farming world. I may here 

 add that I ofiered the Department, well knowing of what 

 use my book would be in the Colonies, twelve copies, 

 to be sent to the various Colonies, but they positively 

 declined to move in the matter, which I partly mention 

 because the reader may be interested to learn that Mr 

 Chamberlain, though in the midst of all his Cape 

 troubles, at once responded most cordially to a letter I 

 very reluctantly wrote to him on the subject of sending 

 the books to the Colonies, and undertook to forward 

 them at once to the Australian Governors. I have also 

 to thank the Board for refusing to support my proposal 

 that the farm should be leased by the Government for 

 a term of years, and carried on till the new system of 

 farming had sufficiently made its way, as I now clearly 

 see that where you have Departments with hardly any 

 business men in them, the handing over of the farm to 



