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Agricultural Research. 



[JULY, 



Surrey, while tape-worms and kindred enemies of domestic 

 animals, both in this country and abroad, are studied at the 

 Helminthological Institute attached to the University of 

 Birmingham. The Rothamsted Experimental Station at 

 Harpenden possesses extensive equipment for the detailed 

 study of problems connected with the constitution and bacterial 

 fauna of the soil, and the nutrition and diseases of plants. 

 Questions connected with the economic side of farming, 

 including, of course, agricultural costings, are dealt with at 

 the Economics Research Institute associated with the Univer- 

 sity of Oxford. Problems of dairy husbandry and the produc- 

 tion of milk occupy attention at the Dairy Research Institute 

 at Reading. In addition, several lesser Stations are engaged 

 on special groups of problems ; for example, the University 

 College of Wales, Aberystwyth, has recently estabhshed a 

 Chair of Plant Breeding, and has started work promising 

 to be of great importance in connection with the breeding 

 of clovers, grasses and other forage crops. Experiments 

 in connection with glasshouse crops are conducted at the 

 Waltham Cross Experimental Station, while the habits, 

 life history and diseases of the honey bee are studied 

 by workers attached to the Universities of 'Oxford and 

 Cambridge. 



Provision is also made for the investigation of special 

 problems which he outside the scope of the Research 

 Institutions. Such problems are bound to arise continually, 

 and if a worker of the requisite qualifications is available, 

 and suitable means for carrying on the research can be found, 

 a grant is awarded to enable him to carry it to a successful 

 conclusion. 



The work of the Research Institutions is, in the main, 

 unlimited in its application. The value of the discoveries 

 is not confined to the immediate neighbourhood, nor even, 

 generally speaking, to the country as a whole, but is appreciated 

 throughout the world. There are, however, certain problems 

 peculiar to a particular locality, and to meet the need arising 

 in this connection the Ministry has had in operation for a 

 number of years an Advisory Scheme, under which competent 

 technical experts, known as Advisory Officers, are attached to 

 certain of the Provincial Agricultural Colleges, for the purpose 

 of deaUng with the special technical agricultural problems 

 arising in their area. It is also the duty of these men — as 

 the word " advisory " implies — to act as advisory officers 

 among the farmers in the locality on problems connected with 



