iS93. NOTES AND COMMENTS. 40 



The meeting was a representative one. Delegates from the 

 Board of Agriculture, the Agricultural Society, the Oxford and 

 London Universities Extensions, and numerous County Councils met 

 a number of the lecturers of the various societies and others interested 

 in the subject under the auspices of the Cambridge University 

 Extension Board, with the Vice-Chancellor, Dr. Peile, as chairman. 



At the first session the "needs of rural districts" and "local 

 organisation " evoked some spirited discussion; a certain difference 

 of opinion was manifest as to the former, while, as regards the latter, 

 a point of vital importance, many of the lecturers had to report a 

 serious apathy on the part of local authorities and persons of influence. 

 Co-operation between neighbouring counties and between County and 

 Town Councils was also the subject of a paper. 



At the second session. Professor Liveing spoke on the sequence 

 of subjects of instruction; the meeting then passed to the consideration 

 of the Cambridge and Counties Agricultural Education Scheme. 

 This will ensure a course of two years' instruction in subjects bearing 

 upon Agriculture, including Chemistry — Elementary and Agricultural; 

 Botany — Elementary and Agricultural ; Physiology ; Geology ; Eco- 

 nomic Entomology ; Book-keeping, Mensuration and Surveying, and 

 Agricultural Engineering. The course will occupy about half of each 

 year, so that those intending to become farmers will have the other 

 half in which to study the practice of farming. Certain Professors 

 and Teachers in the University will admit to their lectures, and to 

 practical instruction in their laboratories, students who, being over 

 seventeen years of age, shall give satisfactory evidence of a sufficient 

 previous education to enable them to profit by such instruction. 

 Several County Councils have voted money for the support of the 

 scheme, while a grant of ;^ioo has been made by the Board of Agri- 

 culture. The same County Councils have also offered scholarships 

 to assist promising young men desiring to take the course. Finally, 

 it is hoped that the University will shortly sanction an examination 

 in connection with the course and will grant a diploma to successful 

 candidates. 



We wish the scheme a hearty success, and hope that those whose 

 future is to be devoted to farming will take advantage of means which 

 will enable them to become intelligent farmers at a very small cost, and 

 thus go a long way to solve the vexed questions of making agriculture 

 more profitable. 



Gigantic Australian Marsupials. 



At the last meeting of the Zoological Society of London (May 

 16), Professor Alfred Newton communicated a letter and drawing 

 from Professor Stirling, of Adelaide, referring to the discovery of a 

 great accumulation of skeletons of Dipvotodon and other extinct mar- 

 supials in South Australia. The find has already been briefly 



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