ays coming when he isn't, and studying
disobedience as an accomplishment. He is not confined, but loafs all
over the house and grounds, like the laughing jackass. I think he learns
to talk, I know he learns to sing tunes, and his friends say that he
knows how to steal without learning. I was acquainted with a tame magpie
in Melbourne. He had lived in a lady's house several years, and believed
he owned it. The lady had tamed him, and in return he had tamed the
lady. He was always on deck when not wanted, always having his own way,
always tyrannizing over the dog, and always making the cat's life a slow
sorrow and a martyrdom. He knew a number of tunes and could sing them in
perfect time and tune; and would do it, too, at any time that silence was
wanted; and then encore himself and do it again; but if he was asked to
sing he would go out and take a walk.
It was long believed that fruit trees would not grow in that baked and
waterless plain around Horsham, but the agricultural college has
dissipated that idea. Its ample nurseries were producing oranges,
apricots, lemons, almonds, peaches, cherries, 48 varieties of apples--in
fact, all manner of fruits, and in abundance. The trees did not seem to
miss the water; they were in vigorous and flourishing condition.
Experiments are made with different soils, to see what things thrive best
in them and what climates are best for them. A man who is ignorantly
trying to produce upon his farm things not suited to its soil and its
other conditions can make a journey to the college from anywhere in
Australia, and go back with a change of scheme which will make his farm
productive and profitable.
There were forty pupils there--a few of them farmers, relearning their
trade, the rest young men mainly from the cities--novices. It seemed a
strange thing that an agricultural college should have an attraction for
city-bred youths, but such is the fact. They are good stuff, too; they
are above the agricultural average of intelligence, and they come without
any inherited prejudices in favor of hoary ignorances made sacred by long
descent.
The students work all day in the fields, the nurseries, and the
shearing-sheds, learning and doing all the practical work of the
business--three days in a week. On the other three they study and hear
lectures. They are taught the beginnings of such sciences as bear upon
agriculture--like chemistry, for instance. We saw the sophomore class
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