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and value are fully appreciated in this country." Mr. Godwin also made 401. for another ram, and 65l. for two other rams for New Zealand, a few years back. But prices are not so good just now, as so many are breeding rams for the export trade. In 1898 the highest average price for Kent yearling rams was 121. per head for 35, which does not compare by any means unfavourably with the prices made by other breeds. The highest price paid for a Kent ram in 1898 was 317. 10s. ; in 1897, 481. 6s. ; in 1896, 371. 168.

DAIRY FARMING AND TECHNICAL EDUCATION.

Kent is by no means a dairy county. Herds of dairy cattle are kept in various parts, especially near London in the district between Gravesend and Bromley, and near the large seaside towns. In the Isle of Thanet there are several herds of very useful cows near Margate, Ramsgate, Broadstairs, and Westgate for supplying milk and cream to the visitors; also round Folkestone and Dover, Tunbridge Wells, and Sevenoaks. Comparatively little milk is sent to London. Butter is not a speciality of the county. It is not in high repute, either because the pastures are not well suited for butter-making, or, as some aver, because butter-making is not sufficiently well understood, so as to ensure a supply of butter of uniform quality. The low prices obtainable for butter also check butter-making, as not more than 1s. per pound can be obtained during the summer. The Technical Education Committee of the Kent County Council had a travelling dairy for some time, which was useful in some degree, but it was not fully appreciated nor well attended by the class who might have derived benefit from its work. This has been discontinued. Demonstrations in dairy work are occasionally given at agricultural shows at Ashford, Canterbury, Margate, and other places. There has been a resident dairy school at the South Eastern Agricultural College, at Wye, Kent, supported by the Kent and Surrey County Councils, for teaching persons wishing to acquire knowledge of dairying; this has been closed of late. There are, however, classes for the permanent students. This college is doing good work for Kent agriculture by educating the sons of its farmers in practical and scientific agriculture at a reasonable charge; also by experiments in hop and fruit culture, the growth of malting barley, and other investigations made at the college, and in centres in the county, on poultry rearing and bee keeping, and by lectures on hops, manures, and other subjects. There is a farriery school connected with this college, which goes from place to place, and is useful and popular. At Maidstone there are no less than 56 pupils on the books. Professor J.

Wortley Axe, of the Royal Veterinary College, has lectured for this school.

The Kent Technical Education Committee has established courses of lectures on hop-growing, horticulture, fruit culture, bees (which are extensively kept in Kent), and poultry-rearing throughout the county. Lectures on the last-named subject have been eminently successful and useful. The lecturer reported in 1898: "At almost every centre I find better samples of eggs and poultry." Very important experiments have been made in the last two seasons with regard to cold storage as applicable to the preservation of fruit and vegetables, so that in periods when certain fruit and vegetables are too abundant maturity may be suspended until there is a better demand for these. The opinion of a well-known fruit salesman is that "with proper refrigerating facilities, English fruit might almost drive foreign produce out of the market. . . . If there were adequate cold storage, one-third more English fruit could be sold at 25 per cent more money." The results so far have been encouraging, and have demonstrated that this scheme is feasible, but to be perfectly successful it must be carried out. on a large scale, on the same lines as jam-making in factories.

CONCLUSION.

It must be said in conclusion that this is a mere sketch of the Agriculture of Kent, and the writer does not pretend to have done more than give a slight outline of its unusually numerous ramifications. There is probably no county in the kingdom in which there are so many different kinds of crops and industries in connection with the cultivation of land, concerning which many pages could be written. Some of them may be classified as "minor industries," as they are often called in somewhat derisive terms, but they are of the greatest importance to Kentish cultivators, without which they would have been in an almost hopeless state of depression. These "minor industries," for the production of luxuries or as some of them have almost become-necessary additions to the comforts of life at the end of the nineteenth century, will be further developed as the wealth of the country and the prosperity of all classes increase, and many of the Kent cultivators are availing themselves skilfully and energetically of the opportunities which their soil, climate, and traditions offer. CHARLES WHitehead.

Barming House, Maidstone.

486

THE MAIDSTONE MEETING, 1899.

ONLY once previously in the course of its sixty years' history has the Royal Agricultural Society held its Country Meeting in the fair county of Kent. That, however, was nearly forty years ago. During the time between the Society's twenty-second Annual Show at Canterbury in 1860 and its sixtieth Annual Show at Maidstone in 1899 more than a generation has passed away, whilst agriculture has undergone changes of a profound character. The decision of the Council to visit Maidstone was arrived at so long ago as February 3, 1897, and in the ordinary course of events the Meeting would have taken place in the county town of Kent in June, 1898. Unfortunately in the autumn of 1897 Maidstone was visited by a severe typhoid epidemic, in consequence of which it was deemed expedient not to hold the Show there in 1898. The Council, therefore, on December 8, 1897, accepted a cordial invitation from the city of Birmingham, where the Country Meeting of 1898 was held in due course, the visit to Maidstone being postponed for one year. Thus it happened that the Maidstone Meeting, which normally would have been held in 1898 under the presidency of the Earl Spencer, really took place in 1899, under the presidency of the Earl of Coventry. An incident such as this is unique in the annals of the Society. It is true that in 1866 the Meeting arranged to be held at Bury St. Edmunds that year was postponed to the same place in the following year. But in 1866 there was no Show at all, its suspension being due to the disastrous outbreak of cattle plague in this country.

It may be of interest to furnish, as in the subjoined table, a few details concerning the two Meetings that have taken place in the county of Kent at the wide interval of thirty-nine years :

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A more admirable site for a Showyard could not have been. desired than that which was placed at the disposal of the Society

in Mote Park. It was not only easily accessible, the entrance gates being within a mile of both of the railway stations at Maidstone, but the position was historic, inasmuch as it was the place where King George III. reviewed the Kentish Volunteers exactly a century previously, an incident to which reference was happily made by Lord Spencer at the General Meeting (see Appendix, p. xc.). As will be apparent from the plan at p. 500, the visitor, on passing the turnstiles, had a variety of paths open to him whereby he could reach the centre of the yard. The ground sloped slightly upwards to the broad transverse avenue extending in front of the pavilions. The view from here, and still more from the grand stand at the far side of the great ring, was magnificent, and the eye rested contentedly alike on the charming woodland scenery close at hand and on the majestic amphitheatre formed by the Kentish hills in the distance.

ENTRIES.

The entries at Maidstone and-for comparison-at the nine preceding Shows are set forth in the accompanying table. Of the live stock the cattle will better bear comparison than any other section with the corresponding totals of previous years. The space applied for in the Implement Yard was below the average. If, however, the comparison be made with the last previous Meeting held south of the Thames-that at Plymouth in 1890-it will be seen that, with the exception of pigs and poultry, the Maidstone entries were more numerous throughout, both in the stock and in the implement departments.

Number of Entries at the last Ten Country Meetings (1890-99).

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1 Including 52 entries of goats in 1897, 14 in 1892, and 37 in 1889.

Number of Entries at the last Ten Country Meetings (1890-99).-cont.

Shedding in Implement Yard

(in feet) [exclu

sive of openground space]

1895

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1899 1898 1897 1896

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1893

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1890

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1860 AND 1899-A COMPARISON.

The totals of entries at the two Kent Meetings are shown in the table below. After so long an interval there is naturally a wide disparity between the sets of figures for the two years. Horses are seen to have been nearly four times as numerous, and cattle more than twice as many, at Maidstone as at Canterbury. Sheep also show a large increase, but the difference in numbers is less marked in the case of pigs. No provision was made for poultry in 1860, whilst the number of implement stands in the Canterbury Showyard barely exceeded half the total at Maidstone.

Comparison of Entries at the Two Kent Meetings,

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A fuller comparison of the entries at the two Kent Meetings is rendered possible by means of the table on page 489.

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