Reformatory and Industrial Schools. 
203 
wheat every other j'ear, the alternate crop being potatoes, peas, clover, kidney 
beans, mangolds, swedes, and vetches. The land is not first-rate, but the deep- 
spade cultivation has given the following crops of wheat per acre : — 1872, 34 
bush. ; 1873, 48 ; 1874, 48 ; 1875, 37 ; 187G, 40 ; 1877, 30; 1878, 56i ; 1879, 
31 ; 1880, 45 ; 1881, 37 ; 1882, 46 ; 1883, 39 ; 1884, 44 ; average, 41. The live- 
stock consists of 3 horses, 4 milking-cows, and about 60 pigs. In 1884, the 
sales consisted of wheat, butter, &c., IISI. 9s. 6c?. ; vegetables and fiuit, 
642?. 13s. 2c?. ; live-stock, 157^. 16s. 2d. The supplies to the school were : 
— meat, 81Z. 2s. M. ; vegetables, 25?. ; milk, 62?. 8s. ; sundries, 4?. 16.s. ; 
making a total of 1094?. 5s. 2d. The largest items were : — apples, 33?. ; 
kidney beans (3.i acres, not sticked, but pinched short), 81?. ; celery, 15Z. ; 
black currants, 20?. ; gooseberries, 38?. (in 1883, 93?.) ; parsnips, 28?. ; green 
peas, 62?. ; potatoes, 94?. ; plums, 98?. ; raspberries, 48?. ; strawbenies, 33?. ; 
tomatoes, 12?. (from glass-house). 
" Our boys are four years older than those in ordinary country schools, so 
that the education in the two is scarcely comparable. The Government 
insists on our giving a minimum of 16 hours schooling per week, and this 
is sufficient to place our education on a par, I should think, with that in an 
avers^e country school. 
" Technical instruction in agriculture, in the sense in which it is understood 
in the Swiss primary schools, it is not in our power to give. The only way 
in which the boys' farming training is turned to account is by placing them 
v?hen they leave in districts like North Derbyshire, where indoor servants are 
kept, and where they have plenty of chances of advancement and of becoming 
farmers. I am sorry to say that a large part of even these boys get discon- 
tented after a time, and come back to a town life. The prospects of an agri- 
cultural labourer in this part of England seem to me to be almost hopeless at 
present. Market-gardening in Worcestershire, though often profitable, is not 
a satisfactory trade for our boj'S. It is very irregular and speculative, and 
does not present the moral advantages of Siraightforward farm-work. The 
market-gardeners have apparently special temptations to drunkenness. The 
farm boys are also employed in jiicking pebble stones off the land for the roads, 
and in working a sand and gravel pit on the farm. Other boys are taught 
tailoring, shoemaking, and baking. 
" Joseph Stuegk, 
" Hon. Sec, 
" Birmingham." 
Of the 80 inmates of this school, 60 are employed on the 
land, the remainder being taught various indoor trades. On 
the purely arable land, cereals alternate with market-garden 
crops, while the orchard-land is occupied with apple, pear, and 
plum trees, having bush-fruits, such as gooseberries, raspberries, 
currants, &c., between and beneath them. Mr. Pease's descrip- 
tion above gives all the agricultural information necessary, so it 
only remains for me to add that at the 1884 educational inspec- 
tion 18 boys were in Standard Five, 22 in Standard Four, 
16 in Standard Three, 22 in Standard 2, and only 2 in Standard 
One. The Manager, Mr. McGilchrist, is a strict disciplinarian, 
and it will be seen by the Tables I. and II., pp. 230-233, that 
this school, with its orchard, its market-garden, and its heavy 
crop of wheat, presents a good economical as well as educational 
result. 
