§ MR. THOROLD ROGERSasked the First Lord of the Treasury, Whether, considering the advantages which have attended the ensilage of green forage in the United States and France, he will direct that inquiries be made as to the best means for carrying out this economy, through the Legation and Consular Service, in these two Republics, with a view of informing agriculturists in the United Kingdom, especially as British agriculture is still suffering under considerable depression, and the Home trade suffers in proportion to such depression? The hon. Member added that one of the motives that induced him to ask the Question of the Prime Minister, in the absence of any Minister of Agriculture, was that the very bulky Report of the Royal Commission on Agriculture made not the smallest allusion to this matter.
MR. GLADSTONESir, notwithstanding the absence or postponement of the production of a Minister of Agriculture, the subject has been by no means overlooked; and very interesting information upon it has been obtained, and more will be found—though I do not know whether the very vigilant eye of my hon. Friend has yet discovered it—in Mr. Victor Drummond's Report from Washington, already laid before Parliament in 1882. Copies of a special Report published by the United States Agricultural Department on the practical tests to which the system of ensilage of green forage had been submitted in Canada and the United States has also been received at the Foreign Office from Her Majesty's Representatives abroad, and has been communicated to the Board of Trade, the Royal Agricultural Society, and the Central Chamber of Agriculture. Moreover, the British Ambassador at Paris has been instructed to prosecute the subject by procuring information respecting the results of any experiments that may be tried in France. The Government quite agree with the hon. Member as to the safe and rational method which he has pointed out—namely, that of procuring the information as the proper object of the Government at the present juncture with regard to this very interesting subject.