[To TRH EDITOR OF TILE "SPECTATOR."] was much pleased to
notice the article in the Spectator of last Saturday on "New Maps for Old," having long been astonished at the way in which the most useful Government publications are allowed to remain almost entirely unknown. Indeed, some might almost be said to be hidden away. I shall therefore be much obliged if you will allow me to call attention to another publication of the Board of Agriculture, the sale of which is probably about one-hundreth of what it would be were its existence generally known. The Journal of the Board of Agriculture was started in the year 1894 as a quarterly publication, price sixpence. Later it was sold at one shilling. At present it is a monthly at fourpence. But it still remains almost unknown, though by means of the post-offices it might have a sale in villages where no one would expect to see a shop containing the most attractive of our cheaper periodicals. And there must be many persons in rural districts who would deem the Journal of the Board of Agriculture a necessary— if they knew of its existence—to whom a cheap and popular magazine would be but a literary luxury. In the Journal, at the end, are lists of leaflets issued by the Board on injurious insects and fungi, the management of farm animals and poultry, and on many other subjects of special interest and importance to the farmer. On each leaflet is the statement that copies of it " may be obtained free of charge and post-free on application to the Secretary, Board of Agriculture and Fisheries, 4 Whitehall Place, London, S.W. Letters of application so addressed need not be stamped." One of the most recent developments has been the collection under one cover of ten or more of these leaflets all treating of the same general subject, price one penny. I enclose a specimen. Active party politicians are not usually interested in the purely beneficent work of the scientific Departments of Government, and do nothing to make its nature known to the public, or to dispel the popular notion that most Government Departments are little better than "Circumlocution Offices," from which nothing of practical value can be expected. And the Departments themselves do
not reflect that unless their work is made generally known it
is hardly worth doing at all.—I am, Sir, &c., T. V. H.
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