958 Agricultural Journal of Victoria. 



Out of the fifteen lecturers engaged in this work, five are on the staff 

 of my branch. This however gives no correct idea of the proportion 

 of the work carried out by the branch, as these five lecturers deliver 

 no less than 43 per cent, of all lectures given. 



The subjects dealt with by my assistants, include manures and 

 manuring, animal nutrition, theoretical and agricultural chemistry, 

 dairy" chemistry and bacteriology ; the microscope and its use, 

 with hints on simple methods of micro-chemical analysis on 

 the farm, and a number of other subjects in which chemical 

 considerations may be supposed to enter into the operations 

 of farm practice. The diversion of such a large number of 

 officers to these duties has naturally been at the sacrifice of 

 important work in the laboratory ; and the time seems ripe 

 for the creation of a purely instructional division within the chemical 

 branch. The effect produced by these lectures, on the young men 

 attending them, is not to be measured alone by the actual knowledge 

 imparted. They have a much wider influence. The influence they 

 might be expected to exert will, perhaps, be best explained by repeating 

 to you the words of my message to the students at Nliill on the 

 termination of the classes at that centre. I there said : — 



" The course you have just gone through, gentlemen, must have 

 been to most of you a revelation of new ideas. It has been valuable 

 in the actual knowledge imparted, and still more valuable, perhaps, in 

 the wide vistas which it must have shown stretch out and beyond the 

 boundaries of the little we have been able to present you. I think 

 the life of the farm from now on may present aspects entirely new to 

 you. You will have learnt the connection, the intimate connection, 

 there is existing between the operations of your field practice and the 

 laboratory of the chemist, the physicist and the botanist. You will, 

 I think, now recognise, more strongly than before, the value of a 

 trained brain as well as a developed muscle ; the advantage which a 

 man of well furnished intelligence has over one of an inferior mental 

 equipment. From now on, new desires will, I think, come to some of 

 you ; new ambitions, new ideals. The book will, perhaps, take a larger 

 place in your hours of leisure ; observation will have been sharpened ; 

 and the wish, I feel sure, will force itself more to the front in all of 

 you, to know something of the wonderful workings of the soil you 

 cultivate and the crops you grow. Had the classes done nothing 

 more than produce these changes, they would have done much ; but 

 they have done more, for you leave rich with a store of practical facts 

 which must assist you greatly. There is no necessity of my saying 

 more to you, or attempting to give advice ruling the conduct of your 

 lives, but you will allow me, before you disband, to express the hope 

 that the infoi"matiou you have received will better help you to throw 

 into your actions the sustained determination and earnestness of pur- 

 pose of your parents, the grand old pioneers who have made our 

 home Avhat it is to-day." In this address to students, I don't 

 think I have taken an exaggerated view of the healthy influence 

 which the instruction imparted by the chemical branch, in conjunc- 

 tion with the instruction imparted generally, has exerted on the 



