AGRICULTURAL SOCIETIES,

AGRICULTURAL SOCIETIES, associations, and clubs have been formed for the purpose of educating all classes connected with land by means of shows, meetings for discussion, the publication of journals or transactions, the employment of scientific advisers as chemists, botanists, and entomologists; the carrying out of experiments on the growth of crops and the feeding of animals; the teaching of scientific classes, and offering bursaries, diplomas, certificates, and prizes for proficiency in the study of scientific agriculture; and for influencing the legislature in matters affecting the agricultural interests. The three great national societies follow out more or less perfectly the whole programme. Agricultural societies have, as a rule, devoted too much attention to shows, and neglected other equally important branches.

The Royal Agricultural Society of England was formed in 1838. It has over 11,000 members, holds an annual show, and publishes a quarterly journal. The income of the society for 1894 amounted to £29,200. The Highland and Agricultural Society of Scotland dates from 1784, but was incorporated by royal charter of 1834. The capital of the society amounts to over £80,000. The income for 1893-94 was £13,200. The Royal Agricultural Society of Ireland was founded in 1841, and in 1887 it was amalgamated with the Royal Dublin Society, which was established by royal charter in 1749, and has an income of nearly £20,000 a year. The Bath and West of England Society and Southern Counties Association, originated in 1777, is the largest local society in England. There are numerous other energetic and useful local societies scattered over the country.

Herd and Stud Book Societies are numerous throughout the country. They publish accurate records of the pedigrees of our best stock, and thereby assist in preserving the purity of the various breeds.

AGRICULTURAL EDUCATION.—In addition to the study of the theory and practice of scientific agriculture, the more prominent subjects under this head are chemistry, geology, biology, elementary natural philosophy, meteorology, and agricultural economics. The theory and practice of agriculture should embrace field demonstrations by qualified instructors, besides lectures on the following subjects: (1) Definition of agriculture; its relations to allied sciences. (2) Surface geology; soils—their properties; nitrogen in soils; the effect on soils of cultivation and the growth of plants. (3) Drainage; irrigation; wet-warping; top-dressing; liming, &c.; paring and burning. (4) Implements and machines—construction and careful management. (5) Steam cultivation. (6) The motive powers—1st, man; 2d, horse; 3d, the mechanical powers. (7) Farm servants—labour and wages; details of horse and hand labour. (8) Rotations—reasons for their adoption; systems of farming. (9) Our farm crops—selection and cultivation; insect injuries and diseases, and their prevention. (10) Grasses and other pasture plants—adulterations of seeds. (11) Management of permanent pastures—methods of making new pasture. (12) Weeds, and means of destroying them. (13) Silage, and the system of ensilage. (14) Manures—farm-yard manure; special manures and ‘artificial’—their uses and adulteration; liquid manure and town sewage. (15) Farm buildings and fences, &c.—covered yards. (16) Live-stock—embracing cattle, pigs, horses, sheep, and poultry; the principles of breeding; feeding and management; cost of producing meat. (17) Dairying. (18) Feeding stuffs—qualities and manure values.

It is the function of agricultural chemistry to discover of what elements cultivated plants are composed, and how plants may most effectively be supplied with the materials necessary for promoting their growth without permanently exhausting the soil. This subject will be touched on in the articles on Vegetable Physiology, Drainage, Irrigation, Manure, Nitrification, Seed, Soils, Rotation of Crops, and in those on the various Crops (see list at end of this article). The diseases of plants and other points of agricultural botany will be found under the head of PLANTS. The farmer should also know the elements of Veterinary Medicine (q.v.).

In Britain, though there has been a Board of Agriculture since 1889, government has never supported agricultural education as the importance of the case demands. Support is given to a chair of agriculture at the Normal School of Science, South Kensington, and a sum of £8000 a year is placed at the disposal of the Board of Agriculture for grants in aid of education in agriculture and forestry, and of agricultural research. This sum ought to be very largely increased. County councils are devoting considerable sums to the promotion of instruction in rural economy, yet in this matter the United Kingdom is far behind several foreign countries. America has many well-appointed agricultural colleges receiving state aid, and most continental nations support well-regulated institutions for the teaching of agriculture. France contributes largely from the public purse in support of higher, intermediate, and lower agricultural education; and Denmark spends £11,000 annually.

The main centres in Britain where a full course of agricultural education, associated with a suitably arranged curriculum of study in the allied sciences, can be obtained are—(1) the University of Edinburgh; (2) the Royal Agricultural College, Cirencester; (3) the College of Agriculture, Downton, near Salisbury; (4) the Glasgow and West of Scotland Technical College, Glasgow; (5) the University College of North Wales, Bangor; (6) the University College of Wales, Aberystwith; (7) the Durham College of Science, Newcastle-on-Tyne; (8) the Oxford Extension College, Reading; (9) the University of Aberdeen; and (10) Yorkshire College, Leeds. The degree of Bachelor of Science (B.Sc.) in the department of agriculture was instituted in the Edinburgh University in 1886, and a similar degree was instituted in the university of Aberdeen in 1895. The chair in Edinburgh was founded and endowed in 1790. The Royal Agricultural College at Cirencester was founded in 1845. The Downton College is a successful private venture, established in 1880. A good sound ground-work of scientific and, so far, practical education can be got at either institution by proprietors, farmers, land-agents, or colonists. The great mistake which many make is to imagine that two years is sufficient length of time to learn the intricate business of farming or estate management. However well directed the work may be during the full course, some years ought afterwards to be spent by every one in further pursuance of study and application to business, under a well-qualified instructor in actual business either as a land-agent or farmer.

In the university of Oxford a professorship of Rural Economy was established in 1796. There are several agricultural schools throughout the country, the best known being that at Aspatria, near Carlisle. The Albert Institution at Glasnevin, near Dublin, which has existed since 1838, is the only Irish agricultural college.

In recent years special prominence has been given to the providing of technical education in dairying. There was much need for improvement in the manufacture of dairy produce in this country; and to remedy this state of matters dairy schools and dairy classes have been set agoing all over the country. Several of the schools are thoroughly well equipped, and provide excellent courses of instruction in dairying. This movement is already showing good results, and when this change in the manufacture is followed by improved methods of marketing, the home producer will be better able to contend with the foreign dairy farmer than he has been in the past.

AGRICULTURAL EXPERIMENTS.—Rothamsted, the private experimental station of Sir J. B. Lawes, Bart., is by far the most important at home or abroad. It has been justly asserted that the work done there has eclipsed that of all other stations put together. It was founded in 1843, when Dr (now Sir) J. H. Gilbert joined Sir John (then Mr Lawes) as chemist and colleague. Several thousands of pounds are now spent annually, and Sir John set apart £100,000 to provide the means for continuing the work after his death. The experiments are most carefully carried out by a highly scientific and practical staff, and the results regularly published may be thus classified: (1) Field experiments on manures and vegetation, as the growth of grass-plants, and of the leading crops, in rotation, or year after year on the same land, without manure, and with every variety of manure. (2) Soil investigation at various depths. (3) Rainfall and drainage, particularly as to the matter of the supply and loss of combined nitrogen. (4) Transpiration of water by plants of different orders. (5) Botanical characters of plants, showing the variation in constituent requirements, and the different powers of plants in assimilating food. (6) Sources of useful nitrogen. (7) Animals' nutrition.

Woburn experimental station is next in importance. It was started in 1876 by the Royal Agricultural Society of England, on a farm set apart by the Duke of Bedford. Excellent work, mainly confirmatory of the Rothamsted experiments, has been carried out, first under the late Dr Augustus Voelcker, and recently under his son, Dr John Voelcker.

Similar experiments of a useful kind are also conducted by the Highland and Agricultural Society and the Bath and West of England Society. In 1876, too, experiments were begun in Aberdeenshire, and later in Sussex, by the same association, the results of these being important and novel in several respects. Experiments on a smaller scale are carried on at the agricultural colleges, and by some of the more enterprising farmers' associations.

UNITED STATES AND CANADA.—In North America, much the same crops are raised as in corresponding latitudes in Europe, except to the northward, where there are vast areas of inarable ground. The winters in Canada and the United States are much more severe than those of Western Europe, while the summers are quite as hot and moist, and hence arise considerable variations in the practice of agriculture. In Canada and the northern states, wheat is a staple article of export. In some exporting districts, wheat and red clover are grown as alternate crops. In Canada and the adjacent states and territories, spring wheat is more profitable than the ordinary winter wheat. South of 42°, winter wheat is more commonly the standard crop. Wheat is the great staple in the northern half of the Mississippi Valley and on the Pacific slope. Enormous quantities of wheat are exported from the United States and Canada to Britain (see WHEAT). Betwixt latitudes 42° and 39°, wheat is often grown alternately with maize, after the land has been under pasture for some years. Again, betwixt latitudes 39° and 35°, the climate is better suited for maize than wheat, which becomes less productive. Below latitude 35°, maize is much less productive, and the climate becomes suitable for cotton. This plant furnishes the staple article of production from latitude 35° to the shores of the Gulf of Mexico. Rice is a very profitable crop in some of the southern states; but its culture is chiefly confined to swamps which can be flooded by fresh water. The sugar-cane is chiefly limited to the rich alluvial lands near the Mississippi as far north as latitude 31°. Tobacco is a principal crop in several states. On the Pacific coast, the climate is characterised by mild winters and dry summers, so that the methods of agriculture must conform to those of the countries bordering on the Mediterranean. On the great plains of the western half of the continent, and also in the Rocky Mountain region and in Texas, there are many extensive 'ranches' for the pasturage of cattle and sheep. In the older northern states and Canada, dairy products form leading articles of export. The American agriculturist has come to be a very formidable competitor with the British farmer in the markets of the old country.

In the United States, associations for the promotion of the science of agriculture are very numerous, embracing in their scope the interests of agriculture proper, horticulture, stock-raising, dairying, bee-keeping, fish-culture, and kindred industries, and ranging in importance from the Government Department of Agriculture at Washington (established in 1862) to the ordinary country fair for the exhibition of domestic products. Almost every state and territory has its general agricultural society, while numerous inter-state, sectional, and county associations abound, having for their object the promotion of agricultural interests.

The cause of agricultural education and instruction in the mechanic arts in the United States has received liberal encouragement by grants of public lands and money by congress, under the acts of 1862 and 1890. Under the former, 9,359,241 acres have been granted to the several states and territories; under the latter, $1,120,779 were granted in 1899. All the states and territories have availed themselves of this assistance, and sixty-four colleges of industrial education (generally embracing a course in agriculture) have been established, either as distinct institutions or departments of institutions previously in existence. The systems of instruction in these institutions vary, but in general embrace—in addition to the studies usually pursued in schools of this grade—agricultural chemistry, with qualitative and quantitative analysis of soils and fertilisers; practical agriculture, including the subjects of soils, drainage, irrigation, and fertilisation; experimental farming, fruit-culture, floriculture, market-gardening, landscape-gardening, farm crops, farm implements, farm animals, veterinary science, vegetable physiology, zoology, entomology, &c.

AUSTRALASIA exports large quantities of wool, mostly to London, where it is sold at the great periodical colonial wool-sales to buyers from all quarters. The growth of the trade in sheep-cases has encouraged colonial breeders to cross the original merino wool-producing flocks with long-wool sheep to give increase of flesh. Many districts are liable to droughts which cause the death of millions of sheep, unless much capital is expended in building dams to hold water. Wheat and permanent pasture grass-seeds are now largely imported from Australia and New Zealand.

The articles on the several countries contain sections on their agriculture. Allotments, Contagious Diseases (Animals) Acts, Peasant-prorietorship, Veterinary Medicine, and other agricultural subjects are treated in separate articles; see, for example, the following:

See Stephens's Book of the Farm (1842; new ed. by James Macdonald, 1891); Morton's Cyclopædia of Agriculture (1855; new ed. 1874); Morton's Farm Series; Wilson's Our Farm Crops; Pringle's Live-stock Farm (3d ed. by Macdonald); The American Cyclopædia of Agriculture (1882); Finlay Dun's American Farming (New York, 1881); R. Wallace, Farm Live-stock of Great Britain (1885), and Agriculture of Australia and New Zealand (1891); works by Scott Burn, Lloyd, Low, Wilson, &c.; and Thorold Rogers's History of Agriculture and Prices in England (8 vols. 1866-93).