COUNTRY LIFE
FOR once in a way the British Association was presided over by a farmer, so to call him ; and no one has a deeper knowledge, at least of the science and theory of farming, than Sir John Russell. Happily he is not altogether of the factory farm school, and one of the best debates upheld the peasant farmer and old traditions. It was in the agricultural section of the Society, many years ago, that I heard a most memorable retort. Sir Horace Plunkett, " the father of co-operation," presided, and the debate concerned 'the difficulties of husbandry in Ireland. The first speech, from a Russell (not, of course, A. E. or Sir John!) was .a venomous political attack on the chairman and what he stood for. When the flood of oratory ceased, Plunkett, in a quiet, objective voice, said from the chair just this: " The spirit of the speech to which we have been listening is an admirable example of the chief difficulty with which agriculture has to contend in Ireland." Another member of the section was, it appeared later, a German spy.
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