July J, 1900.] THE TROPICAL 
AGRICULTURIST. 
13 
A DA^"CE 
with her, than I had this year. Some 
of the other, girls were amazingly un- 
attractive,and they also didaslgaze upon from 
{^far, although I doubt not but what they 
would ha\'e gladly jir.iTiced through "The 
Flowers of Edinbiugh or the '"Pas de Quatre" 
with one who, twenty years ago, was known 
by his coolies, in Kangala, as the Kelavnn 
dorai. Some of my own past time partners 
were looking younger than ever, although 
approaching the dangerous ai.d susceptible 
age of sixty, when a woman really begins to 
need looking after; But, let me change the 
subject lest, like King David, in my haste 
I might say things not palatable to iny 
veneraVjIe contemporaries. Some of those 
gay old girls tootled on the piano themselves, 
and added much to the enjoyment of the 
evening. Several clergymen also took part 
in the entertainment, both with songs and 
speeches, and, as they put on no frills but 
were plain genial speakers, they went well 
with the audience. It is the parson whose 
oratory is pure pulpit oratory, of the un- 
mistakable kirk tj^pe, that " goes far to 
depress an audience .at such an entertainment 
as this was, and we rejoiced that no such 
parson had l>een able to pass the door keejier. 
Unstinted applaxise was the order of the day, 
and I ;i,lwa7fs think there is something 
intensely inspiriting to a nervous performer 
in the thump of a heavy stick or the clapping 
of a pair of large hands. 
Easter brings with it a gi'eat boom in 
SCHOLASTIC 5IATTERS, 
the election of members of school boards 
being on the tapis, and so the public 
have had, at this time, the opportunity 
placed in their power of inflicting one worse 
degradation on a man than making him a 
Parish Councillor. They can make him a 
member of a School Board. Just as a 
Cardinal is made Pope because he is old, 
infirm and imbecile, so a member of a School 
Board is made such, because he is either worse 
educated or more wanting in common sense 
than his neighbours, and thus the only people 
J, who can be persuaded to stand for the 
doubtful honour of being made members of 
School Boards are clergymen and idlers, with 
a sprinkling of the less educated farmei-s, 
whose minds are thoroughly parochial, and 
who have sons old enough to look ufter the 
work at home, whilst they sit in solemn 
state, making fools of themselves as members 
of .a Bocird that dare do nothing of their 
. own free will, but who lie under the heel of 
■ )' a despotic educational visiting agent. The 
• British Isles, now-a-days, seem to be dotted 
over with school buildings, and inhabited 
only by members of School Boards and school 
teachers, the latter a most useless class of 
girls, of electro-plate culture, — a process 
which throws a brilliant film of education 
over a foundation of ignorance, and who 
would be far more useful in the world if 
they had some slight knowledge of clear 
starching and pie-making. To see a teacher 
of the old school type is a rare thing indeed, 
and such an one would be pointed out, much 
in the same way as would be the sole 
survivor of the Balaclava cjiarge or the last 
of the Mohicans. These triennial elections 
always remind me of the time when people 
paid no taxes for freely educating those who 
wished to remain ignorant. Oh ! happy time. 
Oh ! for the days that used to be. Oh ! the 
dear dead past! The columns of the Agri- 
cultural Press have lately been crowded 
with questions and answers on the sub- 
ject of "Gowk aits,"' the consensus 
of o))inion being that these are oats 
sown on or after the first of April -that is 
gowks day. — Farmers who take no trouble to 
observe things connected with their work, 
but go on, year by year, believing in old 
sayings and silly theories, diead being com- 
pelled, by a backward spring, to sow o;Us 
later than the first of April, as they are sure 
to be great sufferers thereby. This, "however, 
is but a wild idea of our forefathers, and, as 
an ounce of pracice is worth a pound <»f 
theory, I may mention that I seldom finish 
sowing before the 23rd of April ; and yet I 
am generally about the first to begin harvest- 
ing in the district. On one occasion I sowed 
a field on the 3rd of May, and it was the 
first cut in the neighbourhood, and gave me 
the heaviest crop I have had in Buchan. !^o 
much for believing imi)licitly in old sayings. 
THE CROW 
—the farmers greatest enemy— is now 
busily engaged in building up rookeries 
wherever any one is foolish enough to grant 
him permission to do so. When I leased this 
farm the trees around my house were laden 
with nests, and the noise made by the colony, 
night and day, was deafening, presently the 
destructive wretches took to digging up my 
potato seed a,sfast as it was put in the grountl", 
and I bore with them, because of the aristo- 
cratic associations connected with a rookery. 
When they killed my chickens and pulled 
my young turnips up by the acre I still stayed 
my hand ; but when they took to killing'my 
lambs, by digging out the poor creatures 
eyes, then I arose in my might and sent for 
all the boys in the district, who plumed 
themselves on their climbing abilities, and 
had eveiy nest torn down, and this— my 
lead— has been followed by every owner of a 
rookery in the district, except one, and he, 
it is hoped, may yet learn wisdom, and clear 
his lot out also. Crows are very suspicious 
of man, j^et, strange to say, thev never live 
far from him ; and it is said of them that 
they prefer the neighliourhood of aristo- 
cratic families A story is told ot an ancient 
mansion having changed hands, and a report 
reached the crows that the new proprietor 
bore the name of Smith, so the colony deter- 
niined to depart. One curious bird, how- 
ever, examined the labels on the luggage, 
and, finding the name spelt with a t/, the 
crows mianimously agreed to postpone their 
departure. 1 don't mean to say that every 
rookery I have seen was owned by a family 
of blue-blood or of Vere-de-Vere extraction; 
some of these proprietors, indeed, were "too 
proud to care from whence they came," and, 
peihaps, it was just as well, for their pedi- 
grees would not bear looking int^. 
The Tka Clearing House Com-mitti k 
have intimated llieir intention to iuc^ea-c ; - 
di-^couut allowance on cliaij;es from ten per 
cent, to fifteen per cent on nil rate.^, except 
that for " hulking and taiinpr " which wa.s re- 
duced from March Ist \-A&t.— Grocers' Jottnia^ 
May 5, 
