8 Farmers Dislike Intellectual Exertion. 



rooms of the Royal Agricultural Society in London, I 

 was told by the clerk that never in his experience had 

 a farmer come there to ask a question, or go into an 

 enquiry of any kind relative to agriculture. He should 

 have said that farmers rarely do so: Planters in India, 

 like farmers here, will not read, as both have probably 

 taken to cultivation from a liking to out-door life, and 

 an indisposition to any form of intellectual exertion. 

 Then it must be considered that the sharp lads in 

 families are generally sent into law, or trade, or 

 medicine, while the duller are considered to be only 

 good enough for agriculture, or planting, where study, 

 though quite as essential as in other professions, may 

 be neglected without much loss until changing times 

 require important modifications of system. As for our 

 farmers in Scotland, I have often said to some of them 

 that I believe most Scotch farmers would go five 

 miles out of their way to avoid seeing an agricultural 

 improvement. And yet all farmers are ready enough 

 to adopt improvements in the shape of improved stock, 

 and agricultural implements and machines ; and the 

 explanation of their resistance to agricultural change is 

 that they cannot afford to attempt improvements which 

 are to them of a more or less speculative character, 

 and are afraid of being persuaded to adopt measures 

 which may turn out to be failures. An improved 

 animal they can see, and from it gain an immediate 

 and certain result, and the same is the case with an 

 improved or new implement. But the return from any 

 new course, such as altering their rotation or laying 

 down land to grass, either permanently or for five or six 

 years, Requires a considerable time in order to prove 

 the utility of so doing, and, in the case of grass in 

 especial, they are hampered, no doubt, by that part of 

 the old saw as to " making a pasture breaking a man " — 

 a saw once most true in consequence of bad and im- 

 proper seeds and bad methods of laying down, and not 

 so very long ago, but now most ridiculously false, as I 



