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THE AGRICULTURAL JOURNAL. 



or premature scheme shall have a chance 

 of survival, especially as he desires to 

 give practical advice to the adult as well 

 as practical education to the young. 

 Hired help in Ireland is prob- 

 ably more difficult to get than in the 

 Colonies ; hence the importance of learn- 

 ing to be self-dependent. It appears that 

 the Commissioners of Education are en- 

 deavouring to reform their entire system, 

 with the object of making the instruction 

 imparted in the schools under their charge 

 more practical. This is important to the 

 coming agricultural scheme, inasmuch as 

 agricultural schools will depend for their 

 utility quite as much upon other schools 

 as upon themselves. When we are told 

 that the importation of a foreign system 

 of education is easy, we are met with the 

 fact that, as Mr. Plunkett puts it, you can- 

 not reap where you have not sown. The 

 environment of the Irish farmer is not 

 precisely that of the Swiss in the Grisons, 

 the Dane in Seeland, or the Dutchman in 

 the Polders. In Ireland the intention is 

 to build the new structure upon a founda- 

 tion, and that foundation is being laid. 

 No collegiate institution is to be estab- 

 lished until a constituency has been 

 created to fill it. The time is not ripe, 

 and the lads of to-day need the help of 

 Professor Carroll's splendid little text- 

 book, elementary though it be, rather 

 than that of the science teacher and the 

 laboratory. Our experience has been 

 dearly purchased in England ; but the 

 Irish Minister, while recognising its value, 

 has determined to steer clear of it alto- 

 gether. He tells us that colleges turn out 

 professors but not farmers, and that farmers 

 do not resort to them. Quite so ; the 

 majority of our colleges are supposed to 

 exist for the farmers' lienefit, instead of 

 which farmers consider them to be 

 beyond their reach. In Ireland the work 

 will commence with itinerant instruction, 

 the utilisation of existing shools, and the 

 training of teachers, while, later, technical 

 schools will be instituted. In the near 

 future every Irish county is to have its 

 agricultural instructor- reminding us of 

 the department professors in France. 

 Such an official will lecture in well- 

 defined districts during the winter, visit- 

 ing farms and giving practical advice on 

 the spot, supervising the woi-k on the 

 agricultural side in the ordinaiy schools, 

 passing on to every man needing informa- 



tion precisely what he wants to know, 

 and making him and his fellow-men con- 

 tributors to the general fund of informa- 

 tion through his own experiences, experi- 

 ments, and observations. What sort of 

 man is this instructor to be ? For clearly 

 he must be an exceptional person, and 

 clearly, too, he must be manufactured for 

 employment on a large scale. Mr. Plun- 

 kett very properly lays it down that he 

 must have had a first-class training in 

 science. iUit scientific knowledge is to 

 be no passport to profitable employment 

 unless he has also had a practical training, 

 and, if possible, he is to have been steeped 

 in farming from his boyhood. Here the 

 clear perception of the practical statesman 

 is well exemplified, and it will be recog- 

 nised once for all, in Ireland at least, that 

 a purely scientific training does not 

 qualify a man to instruct and advise 

 farmers. No course of lectures, no class- 

 room study or laboratory work can take 

 the place of the daily life on the farm — 

 the exercise of judgment in deciding when 

 land is fit for the various operations, how 

 to buy and sell with advantage, how to 

 manage the numerous varieties of crops 

 from sowing or planting to harvesting, 

 how to drain, to repair and lay a hedge, 

 build and thatch a rick, set a plough, start 

 a binder, s- lect seed, judge stock, break a 

 colt, and a hundred other matters in rela- 

 tion to the practical conduct and business 

 management of a farm Those who are out- 

 side agriculture, not excepting teachers 

 who have had a scientific training, are 

 prone to treat farming with too light a 

 hand. The itinerant instructor in Ireland 

 will practically be the central figure of 

 what in America would be very much 

 like a farmers' institute, and I should be 

 glad to see his lecture-room closely re- 

 semble such an institution. Unhappily 

 in England farmers who attend lectures 

 are not imbued with the spirit of thorough 

 inquiry, not only from the lecturer but 

 from their neighbours. Nothing keeps 

 an iostructor up to the mark better than a 

 good discussi(m after the lecture. The 

 Irish instructor will have to answer all 

 inquiries in his county and advise upon 

 seeds, manui-es, and foods, name grasses 

 and weeds, and adaj)! himself generally 

 as guide, philosojjlu'r, and friend to the 

 whole farming community. His work, 

 however, will be supplemented by in- 

 structors in poultry-keeping, fruit- grow- 



