The late Mr. H. M. Jenkins. 
209 
but every personal acquaintance he made, became to him a study , 
and the characteristic intelligence and quality of every one was 
seized and used for his own imitation or correction. His scien- 
tific training and the orderliness of his work, both as student 
and in his official engagements, were of the utmost service to 
him. His wide grasp of the whole truth, and his analytic, classi- 
fying power over it thus acquired, were of enormous value to 
him as Editor of the ' Journal.' His special knowledge, too, of 
many branches of science enabled him. He was himself an 
expert in many subjects, and could intelligently edit the work 
of others who were specialists. His literary powers, like all 
his other powers, came to him of special effort for the attain- 
ment of them. To say what he thought or knew in the simplest 
language was an aim in which he at length succeeded by study 
of the best specimens of English style. Roget's ' Thesaurus,' a 
cyclopaedia of the English tongue, had early been a manual, 
and Macaulay had latterly been a model ; and these, his own 
teachers, enabled him to correct the redundancies and ambiguities 
of others. The knowledge of farm practice and experience 
which he knew to be essential to his office he set himself at once 
to acquire ; and through the late William Torr, of Aylesby, 
and subsequently by travel, inspection, and report — north and 
south, at home and abroad — it was always growing. His ac- 
quaintanceship with the best farmers, and the cordial relations 
which he held with every one, made his work of this kind both 
agreeable and easy. His special devotion to one particular 
branch of agriculture — the improvement of dairy practice and 
of dairy farming — was wise, not only in reference to the 
possibility of doing good work, but also in reference to the 
acquisition of general agricultural intelligence. Every student 
will tell you that the best method of acquiring general power is 
to direct yourself especially to one branch at a time, and work 
it out thoroughly — your field becoming gradually widened as its 
relations to other departments become clear. This was Mr. 
Jenkins's plan, and it was in connection with this, perhaps even 
more than in connection with the cultivation of official relations 
with other countries, that his knowledge of language became of 
service to his office. His travels in France, Germany, and Den- 
mark, and his reports on dairy practice in those countries, have 
certainly been of great service here. 
These, then, are the qualities on which his career has de- 
pended — eagerness, teachableness, and sympathy — loyalty to 
duty, and system and punctuality in the discharge of it — grasp 
and thoroughness of scientific knowledge — literary power — and 
foreign language. Whatever the order of their importance, no 
doubt can be entertained that both the first two and the last of 
VOL. XXIII. — S. S. P 
