112 Farmers Averse to Intellectual Exertion. 



CHAPTER VII. 



WHY aOVERNMENT EXPERIMENTAL FARMS ARE SO 

 SPECIALLY NEEDED, AND THE LINES ON WHICH 

 THEY SHOULD BE LAID. 



" People unacquainted with Agriculture quite forget that land is a 

 destructible material, and its productive powers more easily 

 squandered than a pocketful of loose guineas." — Losd Dtjffeein. 



IT is well known that, with but few exceptions, agri- 

 culturists will not read, and are, indeed, averse, to 

 any form of intellectual exertion. This is not 

 peculiar to farmers. I have found it the same in the 

 case of my brother planters in India. The chief 

 explanation of this is that, as a rule, the brightest 

 members of families who have to earn their bread are 

 sent to the professions and the public services, and the 

 remainder to pursuits where no examinations have 

 to be passed, and which do not call for intellectual 

 activity. The natural result, then, is that a lad goes 

 into, or is bred on, a farm, learns the routine that 

 goes on there, and nothing outside of it, for anything 

 outside of it would require that intellectual activity 

 for the want of which he was sent to farming. For 

 a time this answers fairly well, for every farmer 

 gradually acquires a considerable amount of valuable 

 practical knowledge which is suitable to existing con- 

 ditions. But let any change in the times occur which 

 demands a new system, or important modifications in 

 the old one, and the farmer who knows nothing outside 



