92 

 BOARD OF AGRICULTURE. 



A Meeting of the Board of Agriculture was held at Head Quarter 

 House, on Tuesday, 16th February, at 11. L5 a.m ; present— His Grace 

 the Archbishop (Acting Chairman), presiding, the Director of Public 

 Gardens, the Island Chemist, Hon. J. V. Calder, and Messrs C. A. T. 

 Fursdon and J. Barclay (Secretary). 



The Minutes of the previous Meeting wet e read and confirmed An 

 apology for absence was received from Mr. C. E, de Mercado, 



Mr. C A. T. Fursdon asked the meeting what his position on the 

 Board was, siying that he ^at as a representative of the Agricultural 

 Society and they had just elected a new Board of Management The 

 Meeting thought that as Mr. Fursdon represented the Agricultural 

 Society, and not merely the Board, and had also been elected on the 

 new Hoard of Management of the Agricultural Society, he lemained a 

 member of the Board of Agriculture 



The Hon. H. Cork wrote t') the Acting Chairman as follows : — 

 "Will you kindly inform me whether I am still a member of the 

 Board of Agriculture." The Acting Chairman said he was not clear as 

 to what ought to be decided in this case, and the matter had better 

 remain to get a ruling from the Chairman on his return. 



As a matter arising out of the minutes, the Director of Public Gar- 

 dens submitted a me^norandum on the Bottling of Fruit, with list of 

 prices and other intormation regarding bottling appliances. It was 

 agreed to get a 35/ set "f these to carry through some experiments, 

 and the Chemist agreed to bottle and sterilize fruit if the Director 

 of Public Gardens would provide it This arrangement was agreed to. 



The Secretary read the comments of the various members of the 

 Board on the Sugar Experiment Scheme prepared by Mr. Cousins 

 which had been circulated. Mr. Cousins read a memorandum he had pre- 

 pared replying to the various objections raised. Mr. Calder said that 

 he had not heard anything in what Mr. Cousins had said which would 

 make him alter his opinion. He sy.npathised with some of the ob- 

 jections raised by Mr. E'awcett and he rather favoured Mr. Shore's 

 scheme that we should have a Sugar Experiment Station where every- 

 thing could be carried out on a small but model scale, which he thought 

 would yield more useful results than experiments in the Laboratory. He 

 thought that what they wanted most was an Agricultural College where 

 they could include a Sugar Experiment Station and where they could 

 breed horses and carry on dairying — in fact atraining schoolfor all the 

 branches of agriculture. There would be no difficulty in having all the 

 branches of sugar worked there too. The Acting Chairman suggested 

 that they should adjourn this matter until the return of Mr. Olivier, 

 the Chairman, and he proposed the following Minute : — 



The Meeting felt that in the divided state of opinion among the 

 Members of the Board as regards the Sugar Experiment Scheme, it 

 could not usefully proceed further with the matter until the return of 

 the Chairman, who was also the Colonial Secretary ; who had already 

 given much consideration to the subject, and after reading all the docu- 

 ments he had not y.t seen, would be in a position to advise the Gov- 



