State Aid to Agriculture hi Ireland. 49 



Agricultural Board after the schemes for the year have been 

 placed before them and approved. 



The popularity of these schemes has been so great and the 

 demand for such work is increasing so steadily that there is 

 every prospect of their being retained in their present form for 

 a much longer time than the Department had originally 

 anticipated. In Ireland the schemes differ from those of a 

 similar character provided in other countries, in this : that in 

 addition to the money spent on the actual instruction, very 

 considerable sums are spent by each Committee in directly 

 encouraging the various branches of agriculture. 



The schemes for 1909-10 comprised : — 



1. Instruction in Agriculture. 



2. „ „ Poultry Keeping. 



3. „ „ Dairying. 



•4. „ „ Horticulture and Bee-keeping. 



The scheme of instruction in agriculture provides for the 

 appointment of at least one itinerant instructor in each county, 

 who works in conjunction with the local committees. His 

 duties include lectures on agricultural subjects, such as soils, 

 manures, seeds, pastures, crops and their ciiltivation, breeding, 

 feeding, and management of live stock ; visiting farms ; con- 

 ducting such experiments and demonstrations in spring and 

 summer as may be approved by the Department ; supervising 

 the sowing of the seeds and manures and keeping the experi- 

 mental plots free from weeds ; weighing the produce, tabulating 

 the figures, and preparing a report on the results : assisting, if 

 required, in the teaching at agricultural classes established 

 with the approval of the Department : replying to letters from 

 farmers seeking information ; advising farmers how they may 

 avail themselves of the Department's live stock schemes and 

 of the Department's seed-testing station ; advising farmers 

 how they can best avail themselves of all schemes which may 

 1)6 adopted by the County Committee and by the Department, 

 and how they may take advantage of agricultural organisation ; 

 doing, in fact, all in his power to further the interests of 

 agriculture in the county. The duties of the horticultural 

 instructor are, of course, mutatis mutandis much the same as 

 those of the agricultural instructor. 



The Department makes it a condition that the instructor 

 must have had a first-class training in technical and practical 

 agriculture, in order that the advice which he tenders, and 

 which is not of a highly technical, but rather of a directly 

 practical, character, may ])e based upon a sound scientific 

 study of the problems which he has to solve and to prevent 

 what has done so much harm to agricidtural education else- 

 where — the giving of empirical advice, 



VOL. 72. E 



