1920.] Rural Economy at Oxford. 273 



which the latest methods, the newest machinery, and the most 

 efficient management may be studied by all \tho are concerned 

 to make the best of their opportunities. This does not exhaust 

 present needs. The questions before the landlord to-day are 

 many and varied. Quite apart from farming on the best 

 lines, he must understand organisation, costs, transport, rating 

 reform and co-operation. The history of English land and of 

 English landlords, and the curious complicated story of Local 

 Government, are also matters that should concern him, and he 

 must learn, too, to discover the most profitable farm unit for 

 his estate, whether it is the small holding up to 50 acres, the 

 large farm of over 500, or whether some special circumstances 

 make it possible for him to tread in comparative safety the 

 ground that hes between. 



The Schola Oeconomiae Rusticae is firmly established to-day 

 in Parks Road, Oxford, on land belonging to St. John's College, 

 which shares with Balliol the honour of having given wise and 

 generous support to the new movement. The Institute for 

 Research in Agricultural Economics, of which Mr. C. S. Orwin 

 is Director, is housed in the same building, which was completed 

 in 19 14, and is adequately equipped for the work in hand. The 

 present Sibthorpian Professor and Head of the School is 

 Dr. Wm. Somerville, of St. John's, the eminent agriculturist 

 whose experiments at Poverty Bottom Farm in Sussex went 

 far to prove that there need be no such thing as infertile soil 

 in England. His later work on the renovation of our 15 

 million acres of Enghsh and Welsh pastures, most of which 

 stand so sorely in need of repair, is too well known to need com- 

 ment. The Lecturer on Agricultural Chemistry, Mr. C. G. T. 

 Morison, of Balliol, is responsible, with ]\Ir. Orwin, for much 

 of the administrative work in connection with the school 

 because at the present time the Colleges, with the single excep- 

 tion of University College, have no tutors in Rural Economy, 

 and this lack, which it would be hard to remedy just now, 

 has imposed upon a small band of devoted teachers a very 

 extensive round of work for which time must be found when 

 the duties of a normal day have been accomplished. 



In connection with the School of Rural Economy, the Temple 

 Farm at Sandford, about three miles south of the city, provides 

 for all practical demonstration. The farm with its old Tudor 

 house and pleasant avenues has more than purely agricultural 

 associations. It was a home of the Knights Templars, and 

 Sandford holds still its faint but pleasant memory of Mathew 

 Arnold, one of Oxford's most loyal sons in the mid- Victorian 



