What a great advantage it is to come late! You benefit by the mistakes and the achievements of your forerunners. That is why, to take an instance at random, Budapest in the domain of hospital and urban sanitation is so superior to London. The Hungarians were thousands of miles behind the times a decade or two ago; when they decided to go ahead they were untrammelled by customs, habits, systems, and expensive old plants. From having nothing at all they acquired the best, the latest appliances of science. For generations Nova Scotia has been tinkering at agriculture. The soil of the province is so varied that the early pioneers did not know what to make of it. What would suit one part was hopeless in another. Instead of settling down, farmers migrated from one district, from one country to another. Some who sold their farms profited, others, who for want of application and also for want of knowledge, fared worse, until it was difficult for a stranger to ascertain with any sort of precision just what were the agricultural possibilities of the Province. Ninety years ago an enthusiastic agriculturist, John Young, published a remarkable series of letters under the nom de plume of “Agricola,” in which he gathered together all the current English ideas on the subject of scientific farming, and earnestly urged their adoption by his fellow-countrymen. These letters of Agricola in book form attracted wide attention. Young did more: he set about the forming and consolidation of agricultural societies throughout Nova Scotia, at which prizes were offered for stock cereals and vegetables, and for a time agriculture undoubtedly benefited. But many causes, external and internal, conspired to render farming in Nova Scotia a far less prosperous undertaking than it deserved to be. The constant exodus of the young men from the farms was a serious handicap; so was the exclusion of produce from the American markets, the remoteness of some possible markets, and the scantiness of others nearer home. But still the great obstacle to success was want of knowledge and want of method.

Some twenty-one years ago there was organised in the Province of Nova Scotia an Agricultural School, which achieved some excellent work, but which, owing to the lack of equipment, did not make the impression which might have been made had the institution been dealt with in a more generous manner. There was also carried on from the year 1896 a School of Horticulture at Wolfeville, which, like its sister institution in Truro, was carried on a rather too modest scale. However, after studying the institution at Guelph, and consulting with the professors at that institution, and with Dr. James Robertson, then Dominion Commissioner for Agriculture, the Government of Nova Scotia decided to incorporate these two institutions into one Agricultural College. This institution was formally opened in February 1905, under the principalship of Mr. Melville Cumming, a native of Nova Scotia, and a graduate of Dalhousie University, Halifax, and of the Ontario Agricultural College at Guelph. The faculty was composed of the Principal of the old School of Agriculture, the Principal of the School of Horticulture, the Superintendent of the Provincial Government Farm, together with lecturers from the Provincial Normal School, with which institution the College is affiliated. In addition, the service of some of the leading men at Guelph and Ottawa have, from time to time, been secured, especially to assist in the short courses. Beginning with an enrolment in the regular course of fifteen students, and in the short courses of sixty-eight, the College has in these years advanced to an enrolment of seventy-seven in the full course, and three hundred and forty-two students in the short course, and this, it must be remembered, in a constituency scarcely one-tenth larger than that from which the Ontario Agricultural College draws its pupils. While the College is primarily a Nova Scotian institution, yet its doors are thrown open to students from all the Maritime Provinces, the opportunity being taken advantage of by the young farmers of Prince Edward Island and New Brunswick to the extent of sixteen and twenty-one students respectively. It is, moreover, the hope of those who are most interested in the institution that it shall become, in name as well as in fact, the Maritime College of Agriculture.

The College was purposely located in the same town, Truro, as the Provincial Normal School, in order that the teaching staff at the latter institution might come in contact with the technical teaching of agriculture, and that, in turn, the agricultural students might profit from the literary and scientific teaching of the members of the Normal School faculty. As a further effort at affiliation of the forces of these institutions, for the purpose of improving conditions in the rural schools, there is held each summer during the school vacation a School of Science, classes of which are held at the Agricultural College building, the instructors being composed of men from the faculties of these institutions, assisted by some of the leading men engaged in scientific teaching in Canada. The importance of this affiliation can scarcely be overestimated, for, unless the College is in close touch with the rural schools, and unless the scholars at these schools are directed towards the College, neither can prove as effective in bettering rural conditions as it is desirable for them to be.

The equipment of the College is much the same, although not as extensive, as is to be seen at Guelph and other centres of agricultural education. However, under the conditions described above, it is only natural that the outstanding feature of the institution should be its live stock equipment. In the stables on the College Farm, and, in some cases, in stables in other parts of the Province, but owned by the College, are to be found one of the finest collections of live stock which has been gathered together in any part of the Dominion, There are herds of Holsteins, Ayrshires, Jerseys, Shorthorns, and Herefords, composed of outstanding individuals, and headed by some of the best sires to be found in Canada. The Holstein herd of cows averaged last year 13,500 pounds of milk.

In the horse stables are to be found animals of famous lineage and splendid specimens of their breed. There are seven pure bred Clydesdale mares, three having been extensive prize-winners in Scotland. The College at present owns three Clydesdale stallions.

Equal attention has been paid to the selection of swine and poultry, so that, taken altogether, the live stock equipment at the College is such as to afford splendid ideas for the students in attendance, and also to effect improvement in the general character of the stock of the Province.