292 KEPOET OF OFFICE OF EXPERIMENT STATIONS. 



domestic and foreign boards of the same class. One feature of their 

 work will be the publication of reports for the information and 

 instruction of agriculturists, the awarding of prizes for treatises on 

 agriculture, the estabUshment of agricultural schools, and the creat- 

 ing of scholarships to aid in the study of agriculture. 



NEW ZEALAND. 



A two-year secondary course in agriculture and dair3^ing has been 

 introduced into the district high schools of Wanganui. The subjects 

 of study include physics, chemistry, physical geography, botany, 

 plant life and growth, entomology, work in the garden, manures and 

 manuring, drainage, animal life, dairying, and economics. As a 

 third-year course pupils may be required to conduct experiments 

 under the supervision of the teachers. This course has been out- 

 lined with a view to the development of nature study, practical 

 geography, agriculture, dairying, and weather studies of the primary 

 school; the development of scientific method by the processes of 

 observation, experiment, and inference; the making of each year's 

 course complete in itself, the preparation of the pupil for the junior 

 civil service, or the matriculation examination by the end of the 

 second year; and the general development of the pupil. 



RUSSIA. 



As an indication of the progressive policy adopted by Russia along 

 agricultural lines, it may be cited that at the Imperial Agricultural 

 Museum at St. Petersburg there has been conducted gratis, for the 

 last few years, a series of systematic readings on agriculture for the 

 benefit of everyone interested. Popular lectures are also dehvered 

 and special readings conducted for men in the lower ranks of the 

 army. In the experimental department of the museum demonstra- 

 tions are given, by trained mechanics, in taking apart and putting 

 together various machines and in operating agricultural machinery; 

 the use of agricultural implements is explained, and experiments are 

 made with all classes of farm machinery, such as locomobiles, fan- 

 ning mills, graders, etc. In separate departments are demonstrated 

 the fertilization of fish spawn and the development of the chicken in 

 the incubator. The attendance at these lectures, which are dehv- 

 ered in the evening from 7 to 9 and on Sunday from 2 to 3 p. m., has 

 increased from year to year. In 1906 it was 5,093; in 1907, 17,808; 

 in 1908, 32,442; and in 1909, 60,346. Practical work and excur- 

 sions to exhibitions antl farms in the suburbs, stockyards, and slaugh- 

 terhouses are arranged between lecturers and students. Likewise 

 the special classes pass through practically everything pertaining to 

 plant culture, stock and poultry raising, bee culture, and dairy farm- 



