THE AGRICULTURAL JOURNAL. 



ing, gardening, beekeeping, and other in- 

 dustries, so that the number of expert 

 hands required will be very great, atid it 

 is to be lioped that they will be forth- 

 coming. There is the danger thai, if the 

 demand is greater than the supply, smart 

 fellows of limited practical experience 

 may be appointed, as half-trained dairy- 

 maids were appointed in the early days of 

 the English county councils. 



In dealing with school training, Mr. 

 Plunkett says :— " We do not want chil- 

 dren in the primary school to be taught 

 practical farming." That would be im- 

 possible. But he does desire that they 

 shall obtain some elementary notions of 

 science, and that their faculties of obser- 

 vation shall be trained, especially as re--" 

 gards rural surroundings. Mr. Plunfeett 

 regards the years between 13 and 17 as 

 the formative yerrs, and yet ihey are 

 under existing systems lost to education 

 altogether. The knowledge gained by 

 the child up to 13 is in large part lost be- 

 fore he is able to supplement it by atten- 

 dance at lectures or winter evening 

 schools intended for lads of his age. Thus 

 it is that the farm boy who has never 

 been to school at all is often more handy 

 than the lad who has passed through an 

 elementary course. For one lad who be- 

 comes a student a score or more detest 

 study in its every form, and in this way 

 what men call " nature" preserves an 

 equilibrium in the various and necessary 

 vocations of life. It is proposed to open 

 the door of the secondary school to the 

 child from the elementary school, to 

 arrange the teaching so that he may feel 

 the benefit of it in his future career. He 

 will receive, if he chooses, a two years' 

 training in practical science and book- 

 keeping, while contiuuiug his general 

 work. Then he will be equipped for a 

 course of instruction in technical agricul- 

 ture, which it is proposed to provide dur- 

 ing two winter sessions, llere, again, is 

 a course which I found many years ago to 

 be wot-king well in Switzerland, and re- 

 ferred to in dealing with the agricultural 

 practice of that essentially practical 

 people. From these courses forward the 

 road for the peisevering boy is to be clear. 

 Just as he will be eligible for a scholar- 

 ship to pass him from the primary to the 

 secondary school, so will he be able to 

 pass from the secondary school to the 

 college if he succeeds in a similar com- 



petition. Some years ago I was enabled 

 to recognise the value of this system. A 

 student who had passed precisely by this 

 process from the farm school to the col- 

 lege, and from the college to the head- 

 quarters of agricultural education in Paris, 

 was placed in my charge. He had won a 

 bursary entitling him to study in Eng- 

 land, and it is here again that our English 

 system fails. The foreigner sends his 

 young men to this country with a year's 

 allowanc^; we, on the contrary, are so 

 satisfied with our defective knowledge 

 that we ignore the practice altogether, and 

 I do not hesitate to say that though the 

 modern agricultural work conducted in 

 foi-eign countries ought to have been pub- 

 lished in England in large part through 

 the medium of travelling students, it has 

 found its way to the English people more 

 extensively through these columns than 

 through any other source whatever. 

 What we need in agriculture is the best 

 talent, and it matters not whether we find 

 it i.i the son of the Irish peasant or the 

 English peer. 



Europe has been producing the men 

 who have conferred renown on many 

 countries for many years. There are 

 among the living and the recently dead 

 men like Fjord, Segelcke, Baug, Fleisch- 

 man, Maercker, Konig, Wagner, Hellrie- 

 gel, Miraglia, Deherain, Muntz, Nocard, 

 Schlosing, and many others who have 

 no counterparts among our British 

 agricultural teachers. How should they ? 

 With us the student goes direct from 

 College to work, and this work makes 

 him a mere machine for the rest of his 

 life. Under the present regime the 

 evoluiion of a great teacher is impossible, 

 and I trust that the fact will not be over- 

 looked, or the Irish College will never 

 rank with those of other countries. There 

 are already half-a-dozen students in train- 

 ing, and another group will soon com- 

 mence work ; but the demand for instruc- 

 tors already exists, and it is' urgent, so 

 that English lads who have qualified may 

 find room in some of the Irish counties.' 



a Co-operative Company of New 



bouth Wales had an increase of trade for the 

 year ended 3()th June to the extent of £17,380. 

 ■•■ne net profit of the past six months' operations 

 was £1,983, out of which a 5 per cent, dividend 

 was paid to the shareholders, £518, and a bonus 

 to the consignors and shareholders £750. 



