408 



PARLIAMENTARY PUBLICATIONS. 



Board of Agriculture. — Grants for Agricultural Education and 

 Research, 1 901 -1902. [Cd. 1,242.] Price 6\d. 



The amount of the grants distributed by the Board to agri- 

 cultural educational institutions in 1901-1902 in England and 

 Wales was ,£7,950, while a further sum of £818 was paid in grants 

 to agricultural associations in aid of special experimental work. 

 The aggregate of the grants was thus £S,y6S, as compared with 

 £8,344 m tne previous year. 



County Councils appear to be evincing an increasing desire 

 to avail themselves of the assistance of the Board, in its advisory 

 capacity, in the development of their educational schemes, so 

 far as these bear upon agriculture or rural science. During the 

 year under review the Board's Inspector, besides visiting those 

 counties which have for several years placed their schemes of 

 agricultural education under the regular inspection of the Board, 

 made himself personally acquainted with the educational con- 

 ditions of nearly every county in England. 



There is, it is stated, but little change to note in the form of 

 agricultural education in the year 1901-1902. A considerable 

 amount of attention continues to be given to vacation classes 

 for country schoolmasters, though, on the whole, this work is 

 rather fitful in character. A somewhat prominent feature of the 

 work of the various collegiate centres, and of the counties 

 grouped round them, is the expansion of systematic horticultural 

 instruction. In the counties of Cumberland and Northumberland 

 the Instructor in Horticulture of the Durham College of Science 

 has, during the past year, given 77 lectures and public demonstra- 

 tions to excellent audiences, besides paying many private visits 

 to gardens, regarding the management of which advice was 

 desired. In these counties, also, fruit stations have now been 

 established and promise to be highly successful. The past year 

 has also seen the completion of additions to the buildings at the 



