44 Notes on Agricultural Education at Home and Abroad. 
" When first started, the lecturers had often to be contented 
with an audience of ten persons ; now the attendance is gene- 
rally over one hundred." In connection with the lectures are 
the experimental fields, " which were at the outset doubtfully 
received, but have now become very popular ; offers of ground 
for these experiments are made from all parts of the kingdom." 
Practical demonstrations are made by the " professors," soils are 
aualysed, new manui'es, or varying quantities of manures, tried, 
instruction in poultry-rearing, dairy management, cultivation of 
pastures &c, are given. 
" The landowner lends the ground and supplies the needful 
labour and natural manure ; the Government pay for the seeds 
or plants ; and the product of the crop, good, bad, or indifferent, 
as the case may be, is handed over to the landowner." In 
1885-1886, there were 408 experimental fields at the expense 
of the State, and 86 at the expense of private individuals ; while 
for the current year (1889) there are only 287 State fields, 
and 347 worked by private individuals. It is proposed still 
further to limit the State experimental fields, and gradually to 
confine them to land cultivated by agricultural or horticultural 
societies. 
There are other duties, connected with disease in animals, 
forests, fisheries, &c, which are undertaken by the State, and 
are commented on by Mr. Gosselin ; but I have confined my 
extracts to matters connected with agricultural education. 
Although Mr. Gosselin has given very able information in his 
Report, there must be several matters of detail only to be obtained 
by personal investigation. I think that if aid is to be given by 
a department of the State in our own country, or by the Royal 
Agricultural Society, the action taken by the Belgian Government 
offers an example which might, to some extent, be followed ; but 
that the initiatory steps might be taken by local bodies, and that 
the work, if satisfactorily commenced, should receive guidance 
and assistance either from this Society or the State, or from both 
combined. Establishments like the Normal College at Gembloux, 
or the veterinary and horticultural colleges, might, under proper 
restrictions, receive assistance from the State, in order that 
lecturers and teachers should receive a thoroughly satisfactory 
and practical education, something very different from the mere 
working up of technical handbooks. 
Netherlands. 
Mr. Conyngham Greene, writing of what is being done in 
the Netherlands, states that there is no separate Ministerial 
Department for Agriculture, but that the Government takes an 
