352 
JOURNAL OF HORTICULTURE AND COTTAGE GARDENER. 
[ October 20, 1887 
imprudent, and an excessive use of Swedes led to losses 
both of lambs and ewes to a serious extent in several 
flocks. Such losses were all the more vexatious because 
they might have been avoided. Pea or Oat straw in 
racks, Oats and chaffed straw and hay in troughs, with a 
few roots daily, is a safe and nourishing dietary for ewes 
in December, and if some Cabbages or Thousand-headed 
Kale can be added there is nothing left to wish for. The 
chief thing is to give plenty of sound dry wholesome food, 
with just enough fresh succulent food added to promote 
health; beyond this we would not go till after lambm?, 
when roots of all kinds may be used without risk and with 
decided advantage. We ought perhaps to qualify this 
statement with a word of caution, about the risk of scour 
in lambs from eating rotten Turnips which have been 
frozen, and though apparently sound are rotten inside. 
Scour also proceeds from a greedy consumption of Rye, 
but is easily checked by withdrawing the flock occasion¬ 
ally or frequently from such soft green food as is found 
necessary. These are trifling matters of detail, but they 
require prompt attention in order that harm to the lambs 
may be avoided. 
We lost some ewes in the lambing season from de¬ 
bility. We had been careful to withdraw all over-aged or 
debcate ewes Irom the flock after the weaning, and we 
had to purchase a certain number to replace them. This 
cannot be done without some risk of buying a certain per¬ 
centage of faulty animals, and it proved so in our case,' 
careful selection notwithstanding. We have purchased no 
ewes this autumn from a resolution to curtail rather than 
add to our flocks with a short crop of roots and bare 
pastures till the end of August. Well is it to keep 
always within the sccpe of our means, and to have a 
moderate surplus of food rather than a want of it next 
March. A late spring and its attendant difficulties in 
food supply for the animals of the farm ought always to 
be taken into account in autumn, upon the principle that 
prevention is better than cure. 
WORK ON THE HOME EARM. 
The continuance of fine dry weather has enabled us to push on 
briskly with autumn work on the land. Corn sowing has been done 
quickly and well, a fine seed bed enabling us to cover the seed 
thoroughly and not leave any exposed upon the surface. A sharp out¬ 
look is notwithstanding being kept for rooks, as their depredations upon 
winter corn often does a serious amount of harm. Expediency has a 
certain amount of influence upon our corn sowing, as for example, at 
Little Rookwoods Farm, which came in hand this Michaelmas. The 
land has, under the lease of the outgoing tenant, been left under a four- 
course shift, and there is therefore some fifty acres of long fallow land 
which has been ploughed and harrowed so many times that it is quite 
free from weeds of any sort. We at once decided to sow this fallow 
with Wheat without manure now in order to get through with the sow¬ 
ing as quickly as possible, and in spring we shall give it a dressing of 
chemical manure. The result will be interesting. We hope too it will 
be profitable, as we have reason to suppose it must be, for results from 
the use of nitrogen and phosphorus upon Wheats this year have been 
most satisfactory. We had to take upwards of £100 worth of farmyard 
manure in the valuation of this farm, and shall use that manure for 
roots and spring corn. Why, indeed, should we not use manure as much 
for Barley and Oats as for Wheat ? A fine bold sample of Barley always 
commands a good price, and it is still possible to obtain 40s. per quarter 
for Barley, but such a price for Wheat appears to be a vain dream now. 
Farm covenants are curious—often vexatious when from some freak 
or other a clause or two has crept into the lease binding an incoming 
tenant to pay for straw by valuation or an excessive price per coomb for 
corn in order to keep the straw upon the farm. Local custom, too, binds 
one to make changes in valuations which press with undue severity upon 
the means of an incoming tenant, as for example, when a root crop has 
failed, and the full value of tillages and manure has to be paid. 
AGRICULTURAL EDUCATION. 
The awakening which has r cently taken place to the necessity of 
technical education, if we are to maintain our industrial supremacy 
amongst the nations, has naturally turned attention to the means of 
education in the most important inclu try of all, that cf agriculture. We 
have persistently shut our eyes to the need of teaching our artisans the 
science of their craft until our continental neighbours, who hare been 
fully al've to the advantage of such teaching all along, are treading very 
clo-ely on our hills by dint of it. If technical instru’t’on is such a very 
practical benefit, why not apply its reviving influence to the industry that 
is languishing most with us, languishing, in fact, to the point of co’lapse? 
So we are herring on all sides of the desirability of establishing more 
agricultural Echools, and of doing something to promote the education of 
young farmers, that they maybe able to checkmate foreign competilion for 
a'l their genial climes and rentless acres by the mere exercise of superior 
intelligence. There is no harm in the movement. Our farmers, in common 
with the rest of us, will s‘and theinfu-ionof alittle more intelbg nee. But 
let us not lean upon a broken reed ; let us not imagine that agricultural 
education can ever do for agriculture in this country what technical in¬ 
struction has done for industrial art in Germany. We are authoritatively 
told, and the truth can be demonstrated by experiment, that no man, by 
taking thought, can add one cubit to his statur •. Neither can the farmer, 
by exercising the most elaborately cultivated intelligence, make two blades 
to grow where one grew before. Nature obeys her laws. By manipulating 
her mechanical aDd physical laws we have succeeded in multiplying our 
productive power, in certain directions, a hundredfold. But our ability to 
manipulate stops at the laws of organic growth. We may foster growth, 
we may stimulate it, we may do much to insure the best result, but by no 
human process can we double or multiply the product fixed by Nature. 
Ingenuity backed by capital has worked miracles in the manufacturing 
world. To every man it has given a hundred hands. But what is its 
power upon the soil ? Has the accumulated ingenuity of forty centuriei 
improved very materially upon the agriculture of the Egyptians ? They, 
at least, made agriculture pay ; we do not. 
My object in writing this letter is to point to the practical lesson in the 
futility of agricultural education which we only need to look to the United 
States to leara. Farming is there an industry of greater importance, if that 
be p ssible, than it is in this country. Realising this, the American Cou- 
gre-'S, in the year 1861, prov ded for the establishment in each State of a 
College of Agriculture and Mechanic Arts. A substantial subsidy was 
g’anted, equivalent to some £2,000,000 sterling. Most of the institutions 
have now been in full Bwing for the best part of a quarter of a century. 
They are replete with every educational r quirement, several of them having 
experimental farms attached, and all furnished with a staff of competent 
professors. They have been in existence long enough to secure the con¬ 
fidence of the public. Yet what do we find? We find that in the year 
1885, at the Californian College,, out of 246 students but 17 were taking 
the agricu’tural course ; at the Illinois Institution, one of the most e'a- 
borately equipped agricultural schools in existence, of 356 studen s 21 
were taking agriculture. It is the same throughout every State in the 
Union—buildings, experimental farms, large teaching staffs maintained to 
minister to about a score of youths per annum. In our own dominion of 
Canada we may read the same les a on. The Guelph Agricultural College is 
maintained by the Province of Ontario to teach its young men fa ming. 
Tne staff is most efficient; the fees are most nominal, yet the attendance is 
wretched, and would be worse were it not for the students who go over from 
England. There, in the United States and Canada, everything has been 
done for agricultural education that we could do—money spent lavishly, 
teiching talent brought from far and near. There, too, the agricultural 
population is r lativtly greater than with us, and the result has been failure. 
The farmers will not s?nd their sons to be taught what they think they can 
teach better themselves. They dread the infusion, of bookish tastes, since 
there is very little in common between studying the chemical composition 
of manures and applying them in all their odoriferous reality to the ground. 
Unless we want to wastr the public money we would do well to take wrru- 
ing. To the limited extent that agricultural schools have been tried lire 
they have given no promise of a sncce s s beyond the meagre measure they 
have had iu the United States—if anything rather less, for Burely the 
American, be he farmer or artizan, is a desree more go-ahead than we are. 
—J. A. Westwood Oliver (in Glasgow Herald). 
METEOROLOGICAL OBSERVATIONS. 
CAMDEN SQUARE, LONDON. 
Lat. 51° Si' 40" N.; Lrag, 0° 8- 0" W.; Altitude, 111 feet. 
DATE. | 9 A.M. j IN THE DAT. 
1887. 
S”cc 
= 3 . £ 
Hydrome¬ 
ter. 
Direction 
of Wind. 
1 Temp, of 
soil at 
| 1 foot. 
Shade Tem¬ 
perature. 
Radiation 
Temperature 
a 
5 
X 
October. 
Bat 
ter 
and 
L< 
Dry. 
Wet. 
Max. 
Min. 
In 
sun. 
On 
grass 
Sunday . 
9 
Inches. 
29.700 
deg. 
515 
deg. 
48.0 
E. 
deg. 
53.6 
deg. 
53.9 
deg. 
47.4 
deg. 
57.8 
deg. 
46.2 
In. 
0.«>4 l 
Monday. 
10 
29.412 
46.2 
45.9 
s.w. 
52.7 
49.7 
451 
72.6 
44.6 
0.3U6 
Tuesday .... 
11 
29.70(5 
4 '.9 
88.1 
N.W. 
61 l 
48 9 
32 6 
91.4 
29.9 
0.023 
Wednesday.. 
12 
29.6 >8 
35.6 
34.1 
N. 
48.0 
46.9 
31.9 
84 2 
27 8 
Thursday ... 
13 
29.788 
35.0 
34.0 
N. R. 
47.6 
47.7 
27 2 
71 7 
23.2 
u.oit 
0.03'» 
Friday . 
14 
29.829 
42 3 
89 9 
N. W 
46.6 
49.6 
35.0 
68.4 
31.8 
Saturday ... 
15 
30.U51 
40.1 
37.2 
N. 
45.8 
50.1 
34.2 
93.7 
29 4 
0.»8'» 
29.784 
41.7 
39.6 
49.3 
49.5 
36.2 
77.1 
33.3 
0.453 
BE MARKS. 
Dili.—Dull, foggy morn'ng ; damp and showery after. 
10th.—Wet and dull in tne morning; heavy showers and sunshine alternately in the 
afternoon. 
11th.—White frost early; bright cool day. 
12th.—Snow early; bright cool day; foggy evening. 
ISth.—Sharp frost early; damp, foggy morning; cloudy and showery afternoon, 
lith.—Dull damp morning ; Btorm of rain and hail at 1.30 pm ; cleared in afternoon ; 
bright night. 
15th.—Fine and bright till 10.30 a.m., then showery. 
A wet and very cold week, the temperature being i° below the average, and more 
than 10° below th«.t of the preceding week. The minimum temperature in shaCe on 
the 13th, 27o° is the lowest recorded in October since 1881. The snow which fell on 
lAh remained visible on the ground for an hour cr so, which is unusual iu Octotnr.— 
G. J. Symons. 
