PROMOTION OF AGRICULTURAL EDUCATION. 47 



R. A. Hart has made investigation? of the effect of alkaline waters- 

 upon the setting, strength, and durability of Portland cement, with 

 special reference to the use of cement tile in the irrigated lands where 

 certain salts are present in the soil. The cost of clay tile in many lo- 

 calities is almost prohibitive, and cement tile is much less expensive. 



DISSEMINATION OF INFORMATION. 



Besides much information of general and specific nature given out 

 by correspondence from the Office, and in the typewritten reports. 

 uiDon the various projects, members of the staff deliver addresses to 

 meetings of farmers, engineers, and others interested in problems of 

 agricultural drainage. C. G. Elliott addressed a meeting at Tallu- 

 lah, La., called by the levee board to consider the drainage of lands 

 in the fifth Louisiana levee district. S. M. Woodward delivered a 

 series of three lectures before the Graduate School of Agriculture, 

 Cornell University, at Ithaca, N. Y. Meetings of farmers and other 

 landowners were addressed by the supervising drainage engineers at 

 Princess Anne, Md. ; Georgetown, Del.; Osceola and Lake City, Ark.; 

 Fremont, Nebr. ; and several towns in North Carolina. The super- 

 vising engineers assisted in drafting the neAv general drainage law& 

 l^assed by the legislatures of Arkansas and North Carolina. 



THE PROMOTION OF AGRICULTURAL EDUCATION. 



In 1909, as in years closely preceding it, much attention was given 

 by college and school authorities in this country and abroad to the 

 promotion of agricultural education. At the first convention of the 

 Pan-American Scientific Congress in Chile the programme of the 

 section on agronomy and zootechnics was largely taken up with dis- 

 cussions on agricultural education. In Canada much attention was 

 given to the establishment and building up of institutions for agri- 

 cultural education, including an agricultural college in Saskatchewan, 

 and particularly to the development of courses for the training of 

 teachers of agriculture and home economics. Teacher training was. 

 also actively promoted in Ireland, where efforts have been made for 

 a number of years, through fixed agricultural schools and various 

 forms of itinerant instruction in agriculture, to reach the people in 

 all parts of the island. In England the University of Manchester 

 established a three-year course in agriculture, leading to a degree in 

 science. 



In the United States the country life commission ai)pointed by 

 President Roosevelt collected a large amount of valuable data con- 

 cerning the status of education for rural people and reconnnended 

 the general development and extension of facilities for the teaching^ 

 of agriculture, home economics, and other country-life subjects. Tha 



