1893. NOTES AND COMMENTS. 408 
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 £100 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 Dipyotodon and other extinct mar- 
supials in South Australia. The find has already been briefly 
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