504 EXPERIMENT STATION RECORD. 



The distinctively agricultural features already inaugurated are along 

 the lines of agricultural instruction, the improvement of live stock, 

 and agricultural experiments and investigation. The facilities for 

 regular instruction in agriculture have been provided in the Royal 

 College of Science for Ireland, where a three-^^ears' course has been 

 established; in the Albert Institute (Glasnevin), which will serve as 

 the chief center for training male students in higher technical and 

 practical agriculture, and the Munster Dairy School and Agricultural 

 Institute, which is to be given up entirely to the instruction of girls 

 in dairying and domestic science. 



Itinerant instruction is for the present to constitute a rather promi- 

 nent feature of the scheme for agricultural instruction. These itinerant 

 instructors will give practical and technical advice and lectures in each 

 county on tillage, dairying, poultry raising, fruit culture, bee keep- 

 ing, and other subjects. The plan is for the county to take the 

 initiative in this matter, and on the acceptance of its scheme foi- the 

 department to bear one-half the expense of carrying it out. Such 

 instructors have already been appointed in a number of counties, and 

 the lack of. properly trained instructors is beginning to be felt. A 

 number of "pioneer" lectures have been given with a view, for the 

 most part, to showing the character of the work that might be done by 

 itinerant instructors, in order to stimulate the counties to action. 



The plans for the improvement of live stock are similar, in some 

 respects, to those followed in a number of European countries. The 

 best stallions to be found are registered by the department, and "free 

 nomination tickets, " good up to £3, are issued for mares which are 

 judged of sufficient merit, entitling the owners to have them served by 

 the registered males. During the year 1,T00 of these nomination 

 tickets were issued. Mone}^ is loaned to farmers at a low rate of inter- 

 est for the purchase of registered stallions and premium bulls, which 

 are to be insured and paid for in annual installments. The fact that 

 sixty-one fai'mers took advantage of these loans the first year shows 

 the interest which is felt in the improvement of the live stock. Premi- 

 ums of £12 each were offered for approved pure-bred yearlings and 

 2-3^ear-old bulls of any breed, but only about half of the 737 premi- 

 ums offered were awarded, as there was not sufficient stock exhibited 

 which came up to the standard. This, it is thought, will act as a 

 stimulus to farmers to improve their stock, and thus have quite as great 

 an influence as the premiums which were awarded. Premiums were 

 also offered for approved rams and boars. 



The benefits of these measures are confined to counties which adopt 

 schemes for the encouragement of stock breeding, and all but two 

 counties have already done so, the county usually bearing half the 

 expense. The sum of .€5,000 was loaned to cooperative creameries for 



