1921.] South-Eastern Agricultural College, Wye. 519 



the business organisation of the production on tlie farm, the 

 costs of production, the system of keeping ac(tounts and the 

 yearly financial results of the farming. The pupil is often used 

 as cheap labour and is kept at unskilled work too long, gaining no 

 sense of proportion of the value of the different branches of 

 the industry. There are, of course, many exceptions to such 

 an unsatisfactory state of affairs as has been described, but the 

 Lumber of farmers who can and will instruct pupils in the 

 details of their business is very small. 



The farmer of the future must have a wider outlook than he 

 of the past. He must combine with his other knowledge some 

 information as to the history of his industry, of the conditions 

 under which his foreign competitors work, of the w^orld markets, 

 of some of the more important economic laws affecting his in- 

 dustry, of recent progress in plant breeding, plant pathology, 

 and engineering, of co-operation, and generally of his position, 

 not as an isolated producer, but as one of an army of producers 

 of goods to supply human wants. He must regard his industry 

 in its relations to other industries, socially, politically, and 

 economically. The agricultural college must therefore stimu- 

 late its students in those directions and aid them to become 

 well-informed, broad-minded captains of industry. 



The farms at Wye consist of about 450 acres, 390 of which 

 are devoted to agriculture, the remainder being given up to 

 fruit, hops, poultry, market gardening and forestry. 



The College farm is always a subject on which the practical 

 farmer loves to discourse, and he points the finger of scorn if 

 it does not pay. The farm is to the agricultural teaching of a 

 college what the laboratory is to the lecture room., a place where 

 demonstration and experiment is carried on to supplement the 

 oral teaching. Its utility lies in its demonstrating different 

 methods (not only those of the locality) of cropping, manuring 

 and management, and its object should be to impress on the 

 student that there are different methods of attaining the same 

 end, and that he must use his intelligence and observation in 

 f;?certaining the method most suited to the conditions under 

 vhich he may be placed. The learner believes and remembers 

 better what he has seen than what he has been told, and it 

 may be necessary to demonstrate bad practice and unsatisfactory 

 methods in order to warn him for his future that commercial 

 nnd financial success cnnnot be obtained under such conditions. 



An experiment has been made dnrinp: the pa<=;t year at Wye 

 College in putting the farm entirely under the charge of a 

 Committee of prprtical farmers, but it is doubtfnl whether this 



