e idea of self-help was taking firm hold of the imagination of the
people.

Co-operation had got, so to speak, into the air to such an extent that,
whereas at the beginning, as I well remember, our chief difficulty had
been to popularise a principle to which one section of the community was
strongly opposed, and in which no section believed, it was now no longer
necessary to explain or support the theory, but only to show how it
could be advantageously applied to some branch of the farmer's industry.
It was not, strange to say, the economic advantage which had chiefly
appealed to the quick intelligence of the Irish farmer, but rather the
novel sensation that he was thinking for himself, and that while
improving his own condition he was working for others. This attitude was
essential to the success of the movement, because had it not been for a
vein of altruism, the "strong" farmers would have held aloof, and the
small men would have been discouraged by the abstention of the
better-off and presumably more enlightened of their class.

Perhaps, too, we owed something to the recognition on the part of the
working farmers of Ireland that they were showing a capacity to grasp an
idea which had so far failed to penetrate the bucolic intelligence of
the predominant partner. Whatever the causes to which the success of the
movement was attributable, those who were responsible for its promotion
felt in the year 1895 that it had reached a stage in its development
when it was but a question of time to complete the projected revolution
in the farming industry, the substitution of combined for isolated
methods of production and distribution. It was then further brought home
to them that the principle of self-help was destined to obtain general
acceptance in rural Ireland, and that the time had come when a sound
system of State aid to agriculture might be fruitfully grafted on to
this native growth of local effort and self-reliance.

From time to time our public men had included in the list of Irish
grievances the fact that England enjoyed a Board of Agriculture while
Ireland had no similar institution. As a matter of fact a mere replica
of the English Board would not have fulfilled a tithe of the objects we
had in view. That much at least we knew, but beyond that our information
was vague. What, having regard to Irish rural conditions, should be the
character and constitution of any Department called into being to
administer the aid