264 



Parliamentary Publications. 



In the appendix to the Report statements are furnished 

 respecting the educational systems pursued by the eight 

 collegiate centres of agricultural instruction in receipt of 

 financial aid from the Board, giving a detailed account of 

 the existing staff, the different courses of education offered, 

 the relative amount of time devoted to different branches of 

 instruction, and the number of pupils in attendance at each 

 of these institutions. 



The appendix also contains an interesting series of reports 

 upon the character of the investigations carried out either 

 directly under the supervision of the scientific staff of the 

 aided collegiate centres, or, as in a few instances is still the 

 case, conducted with a view to the elucidation of certain 

 specific questions under the direct responsibility of Agricul- 

 tural Associations, and with the aid of specially allocated 

 grants. 



In these investigations, perhaps the largest amount of 

 attention has been directed to the best methods of manuring 

 grass land, seven out of eight collegiate centres according to 

 this question a place in their programme — while the field 

 experiments of the Bath and West Society deal with features 

 of the same problem. An interesting and novel development 

 of these inquiries is presented in the experiments commenced 

 at the demonstration farm in Northumberland, where the 

 feeding of sheep on three-acre plots of variously manured 

 poor pasture land is being carefully observed, and the results 

 of the fertilisers applied tested not merely as regards the 

 apparent bulk of grass obtained, but as to its feeding qualit5r, 

 by noting the comparative live weight increase exhibited by 

 the sheep fed on the herbage of each plot. 



The recent development of local activity in research and 

 experiment is exhibited by a satisfactory increase of separate 

 areas under experiment — no less than 192 of these being now 

 reported in 18 English and 9 Welsh counties, under the more 

 or less direct supervision and control of the aided colleges. 



These experimental areas are exclusive of experiment 

 stations managed by the societies mentioned in the report as 

 recipients of grants, and they do not include the experi- 

 mental plots and stations conducted independently by the 



