24 HENRY DEANE. 



agriculture, and from records kept it is satisfactory to note that 

 a large proportion of the students who have left the college are 

 settled on the land and are doing good work in their respective 

 districts. At the Wagga Wagga and Bathurst Farms, where a 

 thorough practical training is given to lads, there are some twenty- 

 five and ten resident students respectively, while these farms and 

 those at Lismore and Pera Bore are visited by large numbers of 

 farmers who are all anxious to see the results of the experiments 

 carried on with new implements and new crops and by means of 

 improved methods of farming. 



At the Wagga Farm special attention is given to obtaining an 

 improvement in seed wheat. By careful selection, wheats have 

 been obtained which yield a considerable increase per acre over 

 those previously produced. When it is realised that if by a 

 gradual improvement in the class of seed used, the average yield 

 for the colony could be raised even say one bushel per acre, and 

 that this would mean an addition of £150,000 per annum to the 

 wealth of the colony, the importance of this work can hardly be 

 over-estimated. 



Chemical Laboratory. — In addition to routine work which con- 

 sists principally of analyses of soils, fertilizers, fodders and feeding 

 stuffs, milk, water for irrigation and watering stock, sugar beets, 

 insecticides, etc., Mr. Guthrie says, " we have been engaged in a 

 continuation of the inquiry into the milling qualities of different 

 varieties of wheat, the results of which have been published in 

 pamphlet form. We are now having our mills run by power and 

 in the course of a month we shall be in a position to pronounce 

 upon the milling qualities of any sample of wheat on which an 

 opinion is required. This should be a matter of general importance 

 for at present the farmer has to take just what the millers care to 

 give, and he has no means of commanding a higher price for a 

 better grain. At present any improvement in the nature of the 

 grain is impossible, as the growing of a new variety is attended 

 by the risk that it may not turn out a good milling wheat, but 

 this state of things will rapidly pass away. I have continued my 



