And its Present Policy. 115 



the Government would probably have done more harm 

 than good, unless, of course, the services of Sir Horace 

 Plunkett could have been obtained, or Mr Chamberlain 

 put in charge of the Department until it should be 

 started on a sound basis. 



The experience I have gained since the second 

 edition of this book was published clearly shows me that 

 whatever good the Board of Agriculture may be doing 

 in some directions is far outweighed by the pernicious 

 effect it has in misleading the farmer, and involving him 

 further and further with the manure merchant. The 

 teaching it is directly or indirectly responsible for is 

 not as it, of' course, should be, in the direction of that 

 agriculture which stands firmly on its own feet, and 

 shows the farmer how to depend on his own efforts for 

 all, or nearly all, he requires. On the contrary, the 

 farmer is taught that if he wishes to grow heavier crops 

 he must go to the manure merchant, and that if he 

 wants to produce more meat he must go to the manure 

 merchant again. The Board may urge that it is not 

 responsible for this teaching, and that it hands over 

 the public funds to Colleges and other educational 

 institutions ; but is it not obvious that, on the qui facit 

 per alium facit per se principle the Board is to blame for 

 money being spent in a way that is really adverse to 

 the agricultural interests of the country. This subject 

 is of such importance to the national interests, and 

 especially in connection with the maintenance of the 

 numbers of our rural population, that 1 enter here into 

 some details to show that the present policy of the 

 Board of Agriculture, and the methods of agricultural 

 teaching practically approved of by it, are calculated to 

 deplete still further our largely exhausted soils, and 

 therefore still further reduce the numbers of our rural 

 population. •> 



In my paper read at Cambridge, I said (vide Appendix 

 VII.) that the chemist must become more of a farmer, and 

 the farmer more of a chemist, before either can work effec- 



