66 
JOURNAL  OF  HORTICULTURE 
niggardliness^  but  the  careful  adjustment  of  the  many  claims 
each  of  which  appears  very  urgent.  There  are  in  every  dis¬ 
trict  men  who  appear  to  have  such  a  grasp  of  mattei's 
financial  that  they  stand  head  and  shoulders  above  their 
fellows.  These  men  are  in  request  on  every  committee,  and 
they  work  harder  for  the  love  of  the  thing  than  many  a 
liighly-paid  clerk  or  accountant.  We  do  think  at  this  present 
time,  from  our  own  observation,  that  the  landed  gentleman 
is  doing  his  fair  share  of  public  work  and  a  little  bit  to 
spare ! 
Take  the  present  educational  crisis,  and  it  will  be  found 
on  analysis  that  on  the  shoulders  of  the  squirearchy  the 
heaviest  burden  of  adjustment  lies.  Next  to  this  class  will 
come  the  large  influential  farmers,  who  many  of  them  own 
land  as  well  as  being  tenant  farmers.  These  men’s  time  one 
would  think  was  fully  filled  up  with  their  own  work  ;  yet 
they  cheerfully  put  aside  their  own  duties,  and  bring  their 
clear  brains  and  business-like  methods  to  help  guide  the 
councils  and  deliberations  of  the  district  assemblies.  We 
rather  gasp  at  times  when  we  note  how  all  these  new 
schemes  for  improvement  are  adding  burdens  to  the  rates, 
but,  at  the  same  time,  as  long  as  the  men  we  have  indicated 
are  in  charge  they  will  do  their  level  best  to  check  monetary 
rashness. 
But  there  is  another  way  in  which  landholders  do  much 
to  benefit  tenants  and  neighbours.  We  name  no  names,  as 
they  will  occur  at  once  to  the  reader.  We  refer  to  those 
enterprising  souls  who  have  started  and  encouraged  estate 
■or  village  shows.  Now,  these  strike  us  as  being  far  more 
useful  than  the  large  public  affairs.  The  stock  is  bona  fide 
the  property  of  tenant  farmers,  who  are  quite  distinct  from 
that  class  that  large  shows  have  created — namely,  the  pot 
hunter,  the  men  whose  business  it  is  to  go  from  show  to 
show  with  flash  animals  that  sweep  the  board  of  all  valuable 
prizes.  By  flash  animals  we  refer  to  the  hunter  who  never 
knows  what  it  is  to  get  a  good  bucketting  over  plough  ;  the 
Shire  mare  who  more  often  slips  her  foal  than  rears  one  ; 
the  grand  Shorthorn  who,  if  she  drops  a  good  calf,  cannot 
find  milk  to  sustain  it ;  and  so  down  the  list.  In  cases 
where  a  noble  owner  has  his  tenants  show  he  at  the  same 
time  encourages  and  fosters  the  desire  for  really  good  stock 
by  either  giving  outright  or  at  a  nominal  cost  the  services  of 
a  sire  the  best  of  his  type:  A  little  encouragement  of  this 
kind  will  go  far  to  establish  beyond  any  doubt  some  first- 
elass  stock  on  the  estate  or  in  the  neighbourhood.  In  this 
■distribution  of  good  chances  the  cottager  tenant  is  not  left 
out  in  the  cold. 
We  have  just  come  across  the  account  of  another  scheme 
for  the  benefit  of  farmers  which  seems  to  us  to  have  some 
most  excellent  features.  The  results  ought  to  be  and  will 
be  even  more  lasting  than  any  building  up  of  good  stock. 
It  is  a  scheme  for  the  building  up  of  the  educational 
value  of  the  young  farrner.  It  i§  a  scheme  to  fill  some  of 
their  leisure  hours  after  they  leave  school.  In  fact,  it  might 
be  termed  very  properly  a  course  of  technical  instruction. 
Perhaps  a  few  notes  as  to  this  scheme,  its  founder  and  its 
participants,  may  not  be  unwelcome  to  the  readers  of  the 
Journal. 
On  the  estate  of  Lord  Fitzhardinge  of  Berkeley  is  an 
agricultural  society  connected  with  the  Hunt,  and  for  five 
years  his  Lordship  has  offered  prizes  to  members,  their 
•sons,  or  employes  of  members  under  the  age  of  twenty-five 
and  residing  within  the  limits  of  the  Berkeley  Hunt,  for 
proficiency  in  general  agricultural  knowledge.  There  is  an 
oral  as  well  as  a  written  examination,  and  two  days  are 
occupied  in  the  tests.  The  written  examination  comes  first, 
and  is  taken  at  the  Estate  Office.  There  is  no  mistake  about 
the  work,  for  one  examiner  is  Professor  Blundell,  of  Ciren¬ 
cester,  and  he  is  an  adept  at  gauging  a  young  man’s  know¬ 
ledge.  The  other  examiner  is  Mr.  George  Taylor,  and  he 
must  have  tried  nerves  and  knowledge  pretty  thoroughly. 
On  the  second  day  Professor  Blundell  puts  the  aspirants 
thi'ough  a  sharp  viva  voce  examination,  and  then  Mr.  Taylor 
be ’Ids  his  vork:  a  strong  form  of  object  lesson  it  might  be 
called. 
A  shorthorn  cow  and  calf  are  put  before  the  students  ; 
they  determine  the  value  and  milking  capabilities.  'Then 
comes  a  heifer  for  their  adjudication.  A  steer  follows,  whose 
weight  must  be  carefully  assessed.  Then  a  pen  of  lambs, 
whose  weight  and  value  had  to  be  arrived  at.  Then  a  pen 
of  fat  sheep,  and  some  of  the  youths  were  very  close  on  the 
mark.  The  merits  and  demerits  of  a  pair  of  farm  horses 
and  the  reasons  from  which  they  deduced  their  conclusions. 
Then  come  practical  work — hedge  making  and  thatching. 
AND  COTTAGE  GARDENER.  January  21,  19C4. 
boL.Li  arts  that  appear  to  be  on  the  wane  in  some  parts  of 
the  country.  These  young  men  have  to  study  by  themselves — 
that  is,  there  is  no  technical  college  available  ;  we  are  not 
quite  sure  whether  the  results  may  not  be  better  worth 
having.  It  is  always  the  thing  puzzled  out  by  sheer  hard 
work  that  stays  the  longest  in  the  mind.  It  is  quite  possible 
to  have  too  many  helps.  We  have  a  great  respect  for 
teachers  and  books,  but  we  think  Nature  and  books  and 
common  sense  make  a  very  fine  trio. 
Lord  Fitzhardinge  is  going  to  set  up  a  library  at  Berkeley 
for  these  young  men,  and  Sir  Thos.  Elliott,  who  is  per¬ 
manent  secretary  to  the  Board  of  Agriculture  at  Whitehall, 
has  promised  a  complete  set  of  the  Board’s  publications. 
This  is  a  fine  nucleus  ;  in  fact,  we  do  not  really  think  any 
addition  will  hardly  be  necessary. 
And  this  brings  us  to  another  point.  In  most  villages 
there  are  reading-rooms  of  some  sort.  We  don’t  all  aspire 
to  a  Carnegie  library.  Now,  taking  these  reading  rooms  as 
a  whole,  they  are  most  snarsely  supplied  with  literature  of 
the  style  above  referred  to.  Might  it  not  be  a  kind  as  well 
as  a  wise  thing  if  members  of  the  “  Royal  ”  or  kindred 
societies  would  pass  on  the  agricultural  books  that  come  to 
them  during  the  course  of  the  year  1 
We  know  many  houses  where  there  are  shelves  and 
shelves  again  of  all  the  newest  and  best  of  agricultural 
literature,  and  attractive  literature,  too.  Surely  some 
arrangement  might  be  arrived  at  so  that  these  books  could 
be  engaged  by  the  many  as  well  as  by  the  select  few.  We 
don’t  like  thumb  marks,  but  we  would  rather  see  volumes 
so  illustrated  than  see  the  stately  rows  that  are  rarely  if 
ever  touched  save  by  the  housemaid’s  duster.  An  enter¬ 
prising  young  farmer,  if  he  could  be  at  the  trouble,  would 
see  to  it  that  all  the  profitable  little  leaflets  that  emanate 
from  Whitehall  should  be  placed  on  the  reading-room  table. 
It  is  a  fact  that  these  useful  little  intelligences  are  not 
half  so  well-known  as  they  should  be.  Suppose  Sir  Thos. 
Elliott  asks  for  lists  of  country  secretaries  who  would  wish 
to  be  put  among  those  to  whom  these  papers  are  posted  as 
they  are  published.  We  think  this  might  be  a  step  in  the 
right  direction,  and  we  feel  sure  young  farmers  would  profit 
more  from  reading  such  papers,  which  are  compiled  by 
experts,  than  they  will  do  from  the  perusal  of  the  poor, 
ephemeral  weeklies  and  dailies. 
Work  on  the  Home  Farm. 
We  have  again  had  a  heavy  rain,  and  the  fallows  which  are 
required  for  swedes  are  as  wet  as  ever  they  w'ere — at  least, 
the  surface  is  as  sticky  as  can  be.  We  saw  a  spring  cultivator 
crossing  fallows  the  other  day,  and  we  think  the  example  a 
sensible  one  to  follow.  These  cultivators  lift  the  soil,  leaving 
it  very  loose,  and  there  is  no  fear  that  they  would  leave  it  in 
too  finely  prepared  a  condition  so  as  to  be  in  danger  of  run¬ 
ning  together  with  further  rain.  The  soil  would  be  left  open 
to  the  influence  of  the  frost,  of  which  we  are  still  in  such  great 
need. 
We  are  by  no  means  short  of  work,  and  can  conveniently 
postpone  any  further  ploughing.  Carting  manure  out  over  bad 
roads  makes  plenty  of  work  for  the  horses.  Then  there  is  a 
very  regular  supply  of  swedes  to  cart  to  the  yards  for  the  cattle. 
We  have  had  ,a  truck  of  coals  to  get  in  and  a.  quantity  of 
Potatoes  to  put  on  rails.  It  would  be  very  convenient  to  get 
more  of  this  work  out  of  the  way  before  February,  when  the 
land  may  be  more  workable.  Therefore  we  continue  to  get  the 
manure  out  under  unsuitable  conditions.  The  first  week  of 
February  usually  sees  the  commencement  of  drilling  on  heavy 
soils.  There  can  be  very  little  strong  land  fit  to  drill  before 
March  this  year. 
We  have  got  some  big  hedges  cut  off,  and,  where  necessary, 
protected  by  beards  of  thorns.  In  one  case  adjoining  a  feeding 
pasture  we  have  made  the  beard  very  strong,  and  before  stock¬ 
ing  time  shall  put  a  few  tall  stakes  in  it  and  strain  upon  them 
one  strand  of  barbed  wire  to  keep  the  cattle  from  pushing 
over  it. 
We  have  begun  to  feel  the  depression  in  the  beef  trade  ; 
whether  it  is  owing  to  bad  trade  in  the  towns  or  overselling 
by  farmers  we  cannot  say,  but  we  doubt  whether  the  home 
supplies  can  be  kept  up  to  their  present  level.  We  know  that 
many  farmers  have  sold  out  cattle  which  they  would  in  the 
ordinary  course  have  fed  on  until  April.  Rents  came  due  and 
corn  was  unsaleable,  so  they  had  to  sell  the  beasts. 
The  sheep  trade  holds  its  own,  and  the  cross-bred  hogs  must 
be  pushed  on  now  so  that  they  shall  all  be  ready  for  sale  before 
March.  Sheep  which  are  not  worth  clipping  should  go  before 
clip  day. 
Hens  are  beginning  to  lay  better.  The  price  of  eggs  is 
ten  for  one  shilling. 
