76 Report of Committee on Agricultural Education. 
moreover, and in the sanitary distribution of milk, there is a 
wide field for investigation and instruction. 
If small holdings are ever to become thoroughly successful 
on an extensive scale, it can only be through co-operative 
dairy-farming. The early provision of satisfactory instruction 
in this subject throughout England and Wales is therefore 
especially urgent. 
Control. 
The authority to be entrusted with carrying into effect the 
system above described remains to be considered. As regards 
the Local Authority, the Committee recommend that, in each 
county, agricultural education should, on behalf of the county 
council, be in charge of representatives of agricultural interests. 
Lord Fitzmaurice, in his evidence, described how, in Wiltshire, 
by re-appointing the members of the agricultural education 
committee to be the statutory committees for the Fertilisers 
and Feeding Stuffs Act, the Diseases of Animals Acts, and the 
Small Holdings Act, the county council have succeeded in 
consolidating their agricultural work ; and indicated the advan- 
tages that would accrue if legislation were passed to make such 
an arrangement statutory. This is a valuable suggestion, and 
the Committee lay stress “ on the expediency of there being in 
every county a special committee to organise and to supervise 
agricultural education.” 
As regards the Central Authority, the opinion of the Com- 
mittee as to the Department by which agricultural education 
should be controlled is expressed in much detail. The reason 
for this is that they had, for more than the length of an 
average day’s sitting, listened to interesting and lucid evidence 
from an Assistant Secretary to the Board of Education — 
evidence, for the most part, designed to show that the work 
of agricultural education should be placed under his depart- 
ment. 
Now in Scotland agricultural education is already controlled 
by the Scotch Education Department, and if this plan were 
generally regarded with satisfaction, it would supply a strong 
argument in favour of the adoption of a similar arrangement 
in England. But Mr. Munro-Ferguson, M.P., addressing, from 
the chair, the Scottish Chamber of Agriculture at Edinburgh, 
on October 14, 1908, expressed no satisfaction. Far from it, 
he suggested the creation of “a joint standing Committee 
between the Board of Agriculture and the Scotch Education 
Department. At present they were absolutely dependent,” he 
said, “ upon a Department which might be excused for mis- 
taking a ‘ neep for a docken.’ Sir Thomas Elliott and his staff 
might be able to temper the purely theoretical and scientific 
control (of the Education Department) with a little practical 
