AGRICULTURAL EDUCATION IN AUSTRALIA. 



By CijARLES Frederick Juritz, M.A., D.Sc, F.I.C. 



Taking advantage of the facilities afiforded by the meeting 

 of the British Association for the Advancement of Science, 

 appointed to be held in the chief cities of Australia during 

 August. 1914, the writer joined the overseas party on board the 

 s.s. Euripides, left Table Bay on the 20th July, and reached the 

 first Australian port of call, Albany, on the 4th August, when the 

 winter season in the great continejit of the south was just be- 

 ginning to draw to its close. 



The winter in thc^se parts of Australia where that season 

 is usually rainy had been a dry one, but, in spite of that dis- 

 advantage, there was, to South African eyes, a freshness and 

 verdure about the country's meadow-lands that seemed to tell 

 of a more lavish distribution of Nature's bounties than South 

 Africa's veld as a rule experiences ; indeed, the park-like ap- 

 pearance of the tields round about Angaston (South Australia) 

 made it difficult for some members of the party to realise that 

 they were 12,000 miles distant from Surrey- 



The annual meetings of the British Association are usually 

 characterised by excursions to \ arious places of scientitic interest. 

 Especially is such the case when those meetings are held in one 

 or other of the overseas Dominions of the British Empire. In 

 Australia almost every branch of science offered for inspection 

 features no\el to the great majority of the visitors, and so there 

 were primary excursions to the great mining centres, as well as 

 to places of interest, variously, to geologists, botanists, anthro- 

 pologists, etc. 



Wherever it was possible to do so. the writer selected an 

 excursion agricultural in its bearinj's, opining that thereby a 

 greater benefit might be conveyed to South Africa than by the 

 mere inspection of some of the striking natural beauties of 

 Australia, or by becoming personall}' accjuainted with that coun- 

 try's mining industries. Suc'n an ins])ection or acquaintance 

 would after all prove of little more than personal interest, while 

 in agricultural matters South Africa is not so far advanced as to 

 be beyond the possibility of learning a great deal from the sister 

 Dominion of the South, much to her own benefit. 



It therefore became practicable for me to visit some of the 

 institutions in Australia where agricultural education is carried 

 on and to inspect, amongst others, at least one ex]:)eriment sta- 

 tion where a series of investigations is in operation that are of no 

 less vital interest to South Africa than a proper system of im- 

 parting both theoretical and ])ractical knowledge of agriculture. 

 With that particular station and its functions — I refer to the 

 prickly pear investigational work at Dulacca — I have specially 

 dealt with elsewhere.* 



* C. F. Juritz: " Tlie Prickly Pear Prohle-n in Australia" (l9';5). 

 pp. 14. 



