1921.] 



The New Farm Institutes. 



495 



by two terms of about twelve weeks each, b(.'fore aiid atttr the 

 Isew Year, which may be taken consecutively or with a year's 

 interval between the first and second. Probably, a third term 

 would cover the subject more adequately, and the ideal system 

 might well be one under which a student left his farm and spent 

 one term at the Institute in each of three consecutive years, 

 thus maintaining the educational stimulus over a considjiab.e 

 portion of the formative part of his life. It is realised, however, 

 that any arrangement of this kind would be hard to reconcile, 

 on administrative grounds, with the necessity for keeping the 

 accommodation filled and so ensuring that the fixed overhead 

 cliarges are spread over as large a number of students as possible. 

 Until the Institutes have grown sufficiently to permit of other 

 organisation, the normal course will probably consist of two, or 

 in some cases three, consecutive terms. 



As the instruction given by a Fai'm Institute takes place in 

 the winter months, and as it is intended for young people com- 

 ing from farms, it should not be thought of as providing a com- 

 plete training in manual operations, or what is sometimes called 

 piactical work upon a farm. Most of the Institutes have farms oi 

 considerable size attached to them, and students wiW be required 

 to take part, under supervision, in seasonal practical work on the 

 farm, with the stock, or in the dairy, gardens, etc. Participation 

 in such practical work will, however, be for the purpose of illus- 

 trating the general principles taught in the class-room and the 

 laboratory, and not for the purpose of turning out a skilled 

 manual worker. The student should obtain his practice in actual 

 farm operations upon his home farm ; the object of the Institute 

 course is to awaken a student's intelligence with i-egard to those 

 operations and provide him with the kind of information that he- 

 cannot get by following the routine of any single farm. For 

 example, the Institute courses would treat of methods of cul- 

 tivation and rotations from the point of view of results and costs, 

 with the choice of seed and new varieties, and with the varieties 

 of fodder crops to suit particular soils and systems of farming. 

 The student would be taught the functions of different fer- 

 tilisers, their selection and purchase, and the meaning of an 

 analysis. Similarly, the choice and purchase of feeding stuffs, 

 and the main principles of feeding and breedini^ would be 

 treated. Above all, he should early be introduced to the meanini]; 

 imd value of farm book-keeping, and to the necessity of check- 

 ing the operations of farming by costs. The Institute farm 

 would not be used for direct teaching, but its records would pro- 

 vide a basis for much of the instructi(ni on management. 



