Sept. 12, 1888] 



NATURE 



481 



secondary education, properly so called, but also to become for 



Wales and Monmouth a Technical Education Act in everything 

 but name. As a Secondary Education Act it will promote in- 

 sti-uction in "Latin, Greek, the Welsh and English languages 

 and literature, modern languages, mathematics, natural and 

 applied science, . . . and generally in the higher branches of 

 knowledge." As an Act for furthering technical education, it 

 will promote the teaching of (i) any of the branches of science 

 and art with respect to which grants are, for the time being, 

 made by the Department of Science and Art ; (2) the use of 

 tools, and modelling in clay, wood, or other material ; (3) 

 commercial arithmetic, commercial geography, book-keeping, 

 and shorthand ; (4) any other subject applicable to the pur- 

 poses of agriculture, industries, trade, or commercial life and 

 practice, which may be specified in a scheme . . . as a form of 

 instruction suited to the needs of the (particular) district. The 

 only restriction to the fullest development of technical science to 

 be aimed at under this Act is set forth in the proviso to the 

 effect that any proposed course of technical instruction " shall 

 not include teaching the practice of any trade, or industry, or 

 employment," 



A RECENT issue of the French Jciirttal Officiel contains the 

 Report which M. Bouchon-Brandely, Inspector-General of 

 Marine Fisheries in France, has made to the Minister of 

 Marine, on the subject of the cultivation and condition of the 

 natural oyster-banks of Brittany. He visited St. Malo, where 

 he reports the Koma, a river in which oysters have grown for 

 the last fifty years, as being a spot eminently favourable for ex- 

 periments, on a large scale, in the improved cultivation of this 

 shell-fish. The oysters have been wastefully neglected in the 

 Roma, and at the present time the industry appears to be almost 

 ruined, but to be capable, with a little care, of being restored 

 to a condition of very great importance. Proceeding westward, 

 he found the Bay of St. Brieuc, once a rich oyster-field, entirely 

 destroyed by the reckless use of the dredge. A little further, 

 at Treguier, he found the oyster-beds still existing which pro- 

 duce the famous Breton oyster, a fish rather larger than the 

 Oslend variety, and not a whit inferior to it in flavour. The 

 fishermen have fished to excess, in spite of all official warnings ; 

 they have left the beds no rest or time for growth. The Report 

 suggests a return to the regulations of 1750, by which oyster- 

 fishing in the creek of Treguier was permitted only once in six 

 years ; or, if this be considered too long a close season for prac- 

 tical purposes, to prohibit the fishing for two years at least, 

 during that period to cleanse and tend the beds, to check the 

 wastefulness of the people of the locality, who are in the habit 

 of helping themselves freely to oysters, and to arrange that an 

 ordinary tide, and not the lowest tide in the year, should be 

 chosen for the periodical general fishery. The Report speaks 

 with considerable bitterness of the total destruction of the once 

 flourishing oyster-beds of the Roads of Brest, ruined by every kind 

 of wasteful and improvident fishing. M. Bouchon-Brandely is of 

 opinion that these beds deserve to be replanted, and that, if 

 proper care be taken to protect them, there is no reason why 

 they should not flourish. But it will be necessary, by some 

 penal regulation, to check poaching ; and he believes that the 

 expense of maintaining keepers on the oyster-beds would be 

 amply repaid by the profits which would result from the pre- 

 vention of poaching. Along the coast of the Morbihan the 

 oyster-beds were found to be in a condition much less exhausted 

 than in Finistere, and to be recovering. In the neighbourhood 

 of Vannes a little steamer goes to and fro, watching the oyster- 

 beds, and seeing that they are not disturbed by poachers — a 

 proceeding which has been found to be of excellent service in 

 preserving the fish. At every point, M. Bouchon-Brandely 

 found that the rapacity of the dredgers and the constant dis- 

 turbance of the young shells had been the principal causes of 



the rapid decline in the value of the Breton oyster-beds — a 

 decline which has induced the Ministry of Marine to intrust 

 him with these investigations. 



The following observations on the subject of agricultural 

 laboratories in Belgium are taken from a report recently issued by 

 the Agricultural Department of the Privy Council. Every 

 person living in Belgium who purchases not le.^s than a ton of 

 feeding stuffs can have samples of these analyzed, free of cost, 

 at the agricultural laboratory which exercises jurisdiction in the 

 province in which the purchaser resides. In the last number of 

 the Bulletin de r Agriculture, published by the Minister of 

 Agriculture in Belgium, there is a valuable report from the 

 Commissioners appointed to superintend the establishment of 

 agricultural laboratories and to inspect them periodically. From 

 this it appears that there are now seven agricultural laboratories 

 in Belgium where gratuitous analyses of manures and feeding 

 stuffs are made. By a Royal decree, dated August 1887, the 

 agricultural station at Gembloux was reorganized and a distinct 

 agricultural laboratory was attached to it. Besides this there are 

 agricultural laboratories at Gand, Liege, Hasselt, Anvers, 

 Mons, and Louvain. Not only are analyses supplied by these 

 institutions, but information is furnished to agriculturists upon 

 the rational employment of manures, and the best modes of 

 using various feeding stuffs as well as upon other agricultural 

 points. At the station of Gembloux alone there were 227 

 consultations with agriculturists upon divers questions of 

 agronomy. 



A MEMORANDUM by Mr. Charles Whitehead, Agricultural 

 Adviser to the Privy Council, on the subject of the introduction 

 of insects injurious to corn and corn crops in wheat imported 

 from India, has recently been issued. Mr. Whitehead says that 

 the foreign matter mixed with wheat imported from India into 

 this country serves as a medium for the wholesale transportation 

 of insects injurious to crops. From the cleaning of Indian wheat 

 several categories are formed at the flour-mills. One consists of 

 short pieces of straw of from one inch to two inches and a half 

 long, with pieces of wheat ears. This is sold for litter, and is 

 distributed among various farms in the neighbourhood of the 

 mills. In this straw the most dangerous corn insects might be 

 introduced — insects of the type of the Hessian fly, of the Isosoma 

 Hordd, the joint worm whose appearance in Great Britain is 

 feared by agricultural entomologists. Another comprises light 

 and misshapen grains of corn with weed seeds, known in this 

 country as "screenings," and which ought to have been taken 

 out of the bulk by the Indian producers. This is purchased for 

 pigs' and chickens' food, being therefore scattered over the face 

 of the land. In this, corn weevils especially and other insects 

 may easily be conveyed. It is well known that weevils are 

 most destructive to wheat and other grains in India. It is also 

 equally well known that they are brought over to British ports 

 and granaries in abundant quantities with Indian wheat. One 

 species of weevil, the Calandra oryzcc, the rice weevil, does 

 enormous harm to wheat in Indian granaries, and to wheat 

 while it is being transported in vessels to this country. The 

 admixture of dirt, seeds, and rubbish causes the wheat to heat, 

 which of course is detrimental to its quality, and at the same 

 time causes weevils to propagate unusually and to materially 

 damage it. Sometimes the cargoes of wheat that have been 

 heated are nearly alive with weevils, causing great waste and 

 heavy loss to importers. This loss continues when the bulk is 

 taken to granaries or warehouses where the heat is still evolved, 

 and the weevils revel in it. The amount of loss occasioned by 

 this weevil is estimated at an average of 2^ per cent. Taking 

 the value of wheat exported at ;^6,ooo,ooo, the amount of loss 

 due to this insect in exported wheat alone equals ;^i5o,cxx). 

 Another weevil, the Calandra granaria, closely allied to 



