32 ESSEX PAST AND PRESENT 



artificial manures supplied to members of the parent 

 body, the Eastern Counties Dairy Farmers' Society, 

 during 1904, was 1,132 tons. 



While all this progress was in the making, the posi- 

 tion alike of settlers and of survivors in Essex was 

 being improved in another direction. In 1892 the 

 Essex Education Committee, with funds placed at 

 their disposal under the Local Taxation (Customs and 

 Excise) Act of 1890, purchased the site of an old 

 grammar school at Chelmsford, and converted the 

 buildings (since considerably enlarged) into the County 

 Technical Laboratories, as they are now known, for 

 teaching biology and chemistry, the two sciences which 

 are of the greatest importance to the principal industries 

 of the county namely, agriculture, horticulture, and 

 dairying.* From this point of view the arrangements 

 include a chemical laboratory, with balance - room, 

 store-room, etc. ; two large biological laboratories, and 

 a model dairy in the basement ; while the educational 

 courses given comprise a Winter School of Agriculture 

 (at which there are short courses in the science and 

 practice of agriculture, including both crops and stock, 

 attended mainly by farmers' sons) ; a County School of 

 Horticulture (conducted partly at the laboratories and 

 partly at the school gardens of 31 acres) ; day classes 

 for practical instruction in chemistry, biology, and 

 dairy bacteriology ; evening classes in chemistry and 

 botany; classes for the training of teachers in Nature 

 science and experimental science ; and instruction in 

 the science and practice of cheese-making and poultry- 

 keeping (given in the dairy school). 



But the institution is much more than a technical 

 school for farmers' sons and dairymaids. It has the 



* I shall refer in later chapters to the substantial developments 

 brought about in Essex in market-gardening, etc. 



