226 School of Agriculture, Cambridge University. [June, 



This was the state of things when the writer returned to Cam- 

 bridge as successor to Mr. Henry Kobinson in January, 1894, 

 his duties being to act as Secretary to the Committee, to teach 

 agricultural chemistry, and to supervise three manurial experi- 

 ment stations, which had been established by neighbouring 

 County Councils, namely, Higham and Lavenham in West Suf- 

 folk and Bramford in East Suffolk. The latter was notable as 

 the only station in the writer's experience where phosphatic 

 manuring failed to produce any appreciable effect even on the 

 turnip crop. 



Financial Difficulties, — For some time financial support 

 kom the Counties was so fitful that the Committee repeatedly 

 found itself in financial straits, and on one occasion in 1897, 

 Professor Liveing, the Treasurer, called a special meeting at 

 his house at which the winding up of the Committee's venture 

 was seriously discussed. In the course of the next year, how- 

 ever, largely through the instrumentality of the Cambridge 

 County Council and the personal efforts of the late Mr. Austin 

 Keen, its Organising Secretary for Education, county contribu- 

 tions were put on a more permanent footing, the County Coun- 

 cils of Cambridge and 9 other neighbouring counties agreeing 

 to contribute annually a definite percentage of their Technical 

 Education grant, and to appoint two representatives on the 

 Committee. The Committee agreed to accept scholars from 

 these counties on favourable terms, to supervise local experiment 

 stations, -to provide summer courses for elementary teachers, and 

 to supply local lectures in the counties, the last two items in 

 collaboration with the Local Lectures Syndicate of the Univer- 

 sity. This arrangement provided an annual County Council 

 subvention of about £750, which through the good offices of the 

 late Mr. A. E. Brooke-Hunt, the very sympathetic inspector of 

 the Board of Agriculture, was suppplemented by an increased 

 Government grant. This proved to be the turning point of the 

 development of agricultural education in Cambridge — the record 

 from that time is one of continual development. 



In 1896 the University had received its first benefaction for 

 agriculture in the form of the endowment for 21 years of a Lec- 

 tureship in the History and Economics of Agriculture by the late 

 Sir Walter Gilbey. Its increased permanent income also enabled 

 the Committee to appoint in 1897 an experimental assistant to 

 take charge of the supervision of local experimental work. 



During the years 1896 to 1899, progress was steady. The 

 number of students rose to 20. The increased stair found time 



