om as 
results achieved. The rearing and feeding of stock and the manufacture of 
general farm and dairy produce will not be overlooked. Experience has amply 
_ shown that in agriculture especially “ secing is believing,” and that “an ounce of 
practice is worth a pound of theory ” in relation to the effect in bringing convic-- 
tion to the mind. Butit is not only to the neighbouring farmer that a State 
farm will prove useful. Each State farm will naturally become more or less 
specialised for the particular products found most suitable for its district. 
Students who have gone through a general course at the College will have the 
opportunity of entering a State farm or a sugar experiment station for a 
course of special experiencein some particular line of agriculture. And it 
may be possible, until such time as such students are ready to enter the State 
farms, to admit a limited number of youths as assistants to gain scme practical’ 
- experience in the particular classes of cultivation to which they are mainly” 
devoted. — 
i A competent chemist has been engaged by the Department for the conduct 
of necessary analyses and to supervise the teaching of the important study of 
agricultural chemistry at the College. As required, further chemical assistance 
will be secured. A complete laboratory is being provided at Gatton for the 
purposes of general departmental work, and a separate oufit for the teaching 
purposes is under way. Promising students in chemistry will have an oppor- 
tunity of devoting themselves specially to that subject. 
Specialists in several branches of agriculture are available as travelling 
- instructors in farming districts, and others are to be added. The Department 
_ has in its staff a body of specialists in the practical fruit-erowing and dairying 
and in the sciences of botany, entomology, and bacteriology, which is not 
surpassed by any similar body of men in any colony of Australasia; and when 
the specialists in tobacco and coffee-growing and wine-making now in contem- 
“ plation are added, great and enduring results from their work may confidently 
_ be anticipated. 
_ But however excellent the teaching power or arrangements of the 
Department may be, however ready the people of the country, both young and 
old, to acquire the knowledge offered to them, no grand results can be 
achieved without the help of the farmers themselves. They must be taught as. 
their first lesson that if they desire the help of the Department they must as a 
body set to themselves the task of he!ping themselves and helping it. To do. 
so effectively, they need to combine together much more than heretofore. It 
is not possible to have high-class specialists in such numbers as to provide for 
individual visits to every farm in the colony. Local wants and local questions 
are best made known by associations of local people, who are thereby enabled 
to give united expression to them. If the general body of farmers in any 
locality are unable for any reason to meet and give united expression to their 
wants or opinions, or if they are divided amongst themselves, their influence 
for the good of their district mnst necessarily be lessened, and to no section of 
people should the adage “ United we stand, divided we fall’ more strongly 
appeal. At a few places in Queensland the combination of local farmers has. 
been productive of great benefit, but as a rule there is no section in the 
community more disorganised. ‘The associations for show purposes are of some: 
benefit; they are general throughout the colony, but as a rule their efforts 
begin and end with their annual shows, which are held quite as much in the 
interests of the townspeople as of the farmers. The holding of shows ought to 
have only a secondary place in the objects of farmers’ societies. Useful as 
these shows may be in the opportunities they offer for mutual intercourse, 
inspection of new machines, comparison of products, and in providing a well 
appreciated annual holiday, the benefits they confer on the farmer are but small 
compared with those derivable from union for objects of greater importance. 
__ At every meeting-place of farmers, complaints are heard of the difficulty of 
disposal of their produce, the delays and expense of transport, the high interest 
on borrowed money, the expense and difficulty of getting good implements, 
and the high price of such necessaries as they cannot themselves produce, and 
