Agricultral Education in Ireland. 
423 
where they took a moderate-sized farm, and erected upon it suit- 
able offices. Two classes of persons received instruction : — 
First, the schoolmasters, trained in the Normal Training Esta- 
blishment in the city, who went out to the model farm regularly 
for instruction, the object being to qualify them to teach agricul- 
ture in their several districts, when they returned to their own 
schools. Second, a number of young men, who were received as 
agricultural boarders, and trained as professional agriculturists, 
in the hope that they would afterwards be employed by the 
landed gentry of the country in instructing their tenants. 
The Commissioners were engaged in pursuing their system of 
agricultural instruction, when at the end of 1843 the Royal 
Commission, known as the Devon Commission, was appointed, 
and proceeded to make a searching inquiry into all matters relat- 
ing to the agricultural interests of Ireland. Landed proprietors, 
land-agents, practical farmers, and professional men acquainted 
with the state of Ireland and interested in promoting its pro- 
sperity, were examined. It is remarkable that, to use the words 
of the " Digest " of the report of the Devon Commission, 
" There appears to have been no difference of opinion amongst 
the witnesses, as to the advantages to be derived from an ex- 
tended establishment of agricultural schools." 
The favourable way in which agricultural schools were 
mentioned in the report, and the strong evidence given in their 
favour by the witnesses, naturally assigned to them a high place 
among the agencies for mitigating the evils of the famine, and 
preventing a recurrence of it. One or two references will show 
liow deep a hold the question took on the gentry at the time. 
The empire has produced few men who were supposed, and 
with good reason, to understand the wants of Ireland better than 
Lord Mounteagle. When at the zenith of his influence, he 
addressed a remarkable letter to the Commission embodying 
suggestions for the establishment and government of agricultural 
schools. This document will be found in the Report of the 
Commissioners of National Education for 1847, and it contained 
the following passage : — " It is wholly unnecessary to dwell on 
the importance of agricultural education. But I may be per- 
mitted to observe that what, before the blight of the potatoe, 
was a matter of undeniable usefulness, is now, by this casualty, 
made a matter of indispensable necessity ; we are called upon 
under the penalty of famine to teach our people modes of culti- 
vating better crops." 
The Royal Agricultural Improvement Society of Ireland had 
by this time been established, and the list of members included 
a large number of the nobility and gentry of Ireland. In the 
second number of the Quarterly Journal, which was issued for a 
