618 EXPERIMENT STATION RECOED. 



8 grades and possibly the high school, domestic economy, manual traming, and nature 

 study will be taught. Under the direction of Professor Robertson eleven Canadian 

 teachers have been sent to this country for a 6 months' course in science and agri- 

 culture, after which they will go to the agricultural college at Guelph for a further 

 course of 2 months. Five of these men will then act as principals of the 5 con- 

 solidated schools and teach the nature study. In addition to these schools, there is 

 to be a traveling inspector in nature study in each province, who will visit a group 

 of 5 of the ordinary schools of the province, which are separate and apart from the 

 consolidated schools but which are regarded as prospective centers for consolidated 

 schools. Each of these 5 schools will be visited once a week and instruction given 

 in school garden work and nature study. The consolidated schools and the schools 

 visited by the traveling inspectors will each be provided with school gardens. It is 

 proposed to begin work on this plan next September M'ith the opening of the school 

 year. Sir William Macdonald bears the expense for 3 years, over and above what 

 the same schools are now costing, and the whole work will be carried out under the 

 regularly appointed educational authorities. 



RuKAL Education in France. — In a paper on French rural education, read before 

 the Society of Arts, and reported in Nature, Cloudesley Brereton explained the part 

 taken by the primary and secondary schools in the agricultural education of the 

 .nation. In France in some communes one person in every four is a land proprietor, 

 and the aim in the primary schools has been to give the pupils some grasp of the 

 Iirinciples underlying the science of agriculture. The teacher is not expected to 

 follow rigidly the departmental programme, but to choose those portions which best 

 suit the particular district. The teachers in these schools are trained by professors 

 of agriculture in the training colleges. There i.s still some doubt among French 

 authorities on education whether the scientific or the agricultural side of the instruc- 

 tion should predominate in primary schools. In the secondary schools of France 

 agricultural education has an insignificant place, although the work done by means 

 of lectures and evening classes conducted in connection with clubs and other organi- 

 zations is important. 



Propaganda for the Rational Use of Fertilizers in Italy. — A voluminous 

 report has been received on this work, which is carried on by a section of the Italian 

 Federation of Agricultural Societies. This federation was organized in 1892, but the 

 section on fertilizers was not formed until 1898. The objects of the propaganda are 

 to encourage the establishment of experimental and demonstration fields to test 

 fertihzers, to disseminate information relating to fertilizers by means of publications 

 of various kinds, to answer inquiries relating to fertilizers, and to hold public meet- 

 ings to discuss the subject. The report is the first which has been issued on the 

 propaganda, and covers the period from 1898 to 1901, inclusive. The results of a 

 large number of cooperative experiments on a great variety of crops in different 

 parts of Italy during the last 4 years are reported in detail, and their practical value 

 and application are discussed, with instructions for carrying on such experiments. 



International Dairy Congress. — The Societe Nationale de Laiterie of Belgium has 

 requested the holding of an international dairy congress at Brussels in September, 

 1903, immediately after the eleventh congress of hygiene and demography. The 

 questions proposed for the consideration of the congress are the suppression of fraud 

 in the dairy industry, the hj-giene of milk and its j^roducts, and the creation of an 

 international dairy association. Opinions relating to the movement are requested, 

 communications to be addressed to Arm. Collard Bovy, general secretary of the 

 Societe Nationale de Laiterie, Square Marie-Louise, 56, Brussels. 



Electricity and Rain Making. — The following item comes somewhat round 

 about, being copied from an English newspaper by the AgricuUural Journal and 

 Mining Record, of Natal. The item states that some interesting experiments for the 



