96 'Teclmical Education in Agricidhire. 
this view because, as lie says, it reduces tlie farmer to tlie level 
of a huckster. Admitting, however, that scientific knowledge 
properly applied will enable a farmer to produce better crops 
and to breed better animals, without increasing their cost, it is 
none the less a fact that unless the commercial capacity — the 
trading instinct — be well developed in him, his bargains are 
not unlikely to prove unprofitable. 
Agriculture not a Science. 
Whilst, therefore, it is by no means implied that a scientific 
and technical training will not greatly help a man in producing 
that which he has to sell, and in valuing that which he washes 
to buy, it is desirable to emphasise the fact that agriculture is 
not a science. Much misunderstanding has, indeed, arisen 
through regarding agriculture as a science. We might as well 
talk of the science of plumbing, or of building, or of seaman- 
ship, as of the science of agriculture. Agriculture is an art, an 
industry, and, above all, it is a business in which commercial 
principles will come to the front as much as in any other of the 
many industries to which human ingenuity is applied. 
Technical Education. 
With regard to technical education in agriculture, it may 
be useful to point out that technical education (t^x^'t], an art or 
industry) consists by no means exclusively of scientific education. 
There are many sciences which bear upon the art of agriculture, 
and which help us to understand its principles ; but technical 
education in agriculture involves something more than instruc- 
tion in the sciences which shed light upon it. These may be 
broadly grouped as mathematics and mechanics, physics and 
chemistry, and the natural history sciences, and, in so far as 
they bear upon agriculture, arc of direct agricultural value. 
But, although they are useful as throwing light upon the art, 
or industry, or business of agriculture, they only form a part of 
that technical knowledge which every .igriculturist should 
pjssess. In addition to these subjects, there are others, of a less 
purely scieulific nature, wliich should undoubtedly be included 
in any complete scheme of technical instruction in agriculture. 
As an example may be mentioned surveying, which is to a great 
extent an art based upon mathematical principles. 
Book-keeping, again, may be regarded as the key to the 
farmer's position, and it is not easy to suggest any subject 
capable gf more direct and profitable application than this. A 
