1 90S.] Co-operation for Small Holders. 



535 



might mean the loss of a considerable portion of his income for 

 the year. 



"A co-operative insurance society is about to be started in 

 London. I would urge upon the promoters the extreme desir- 

 ability of putting the insurance of stock before that of fire, and 

 of placing means at the disposal of the small men by which 

 they could extricate themselves from the serious financial 

 difficulty in which the loss of stock would involve them. 



' £ Before sitting down I wish to make a brief reference to 

 another important subject, namely, that of agricultural educa- 

 tion. If the small holdings movement is to succeed in the way 

 it can and ought to do, education and co-operation must go 

 hand in hand, and the movement opens up a splendid field of 

 usefulness to your technical instruction committees. 



" I venture to think that the necessity for providing scientific 

 and practical instruction in agriculture has never been more 

 pressing, and I suggest that special efforts should be made to 

 apply the results of scientific research in a practical and business- 

 like way. 



" No one realises more than I do the value of scientific know- 

 ledge, but what I feel strongly is that the time has come when 

 the results of research should be applied in a practical way, 

 when the knowledge obtained at Rothamsted, at Woburn, 

 and other stations of the kind, should be brought directly to 

 the door of the small man. 



■'Experimental plots are necessary, no doubt, for students at 

 the universities, agricultural colleges, and agricultural institutes, 

 but to the small man they are almost valueless. 



" I should like to see county councils taking an allotment or 

 small holding in every district under their own direction and 

 control by arrangement with the tenant, and applying to the 

 cultivation of that holding the most approved methods of 

 scientific cultivation; seeing is believing, and if the small men of a 

 district saw an allotment in their midst yielding better monetary 

 results when treated and cultivated in the light of scientific 

 knowledge, the value to them would be almost incalculable, and 

 would be the means, not only of putting money into their 

 pockets, but of raising the standard of intelligence through- 

 out the countryside and of adding to the interest and charm of 

 the cultivation of land — than which no more interesting occupa- 

 tion is possible." 



