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Technical Education in Agriculture. 
middle, or near the end of my course, when it was dropped to three hours. 
Later, it has been dropped to two and a half hours for many or most of the 
students, and students are not compelled to work every day now. For these 
lahour hours certain kinds of laboratory practice are substituted, as manipu- 
lations in chemistry, veterinary surgery, microscopy, and the like, and the 
faculty will tell you that this is manual labour! It simply shows that new 
methods are creeping in, and the old are disappearing, even when the new 
are struggling, as you may say, under repression. And as fast as the new 
ones creep in, just in that proportion does the college increase in usefulness. 
As tlie University Colleges develop their agricultural sides, 
tlie work they do might be supplemented by farmers effecting 
a temporary interchange of their sons. Here is, say, a farmer in 
the North, who has a farmer friend in Norfolk or Wiltshire, or 
some other county, and they both have sons of about the same 
aQfe : what more suitable than that these two voung men 
should change places for a year ? It expands a man's mind if 
he can see the farming and leam the markets of another district 
besides his own ; and. in an arrangement of tliis kind, the col- 
lege-taught student, the son of a farmer, might acquire a great 
amount of knowledge that would be useful and valuable to him 
all his life. 
The Disposal of the Grant to County Councils. 
In many counties it has already been decided that a portion of 
the money accruing fi-om the Beer and Spirit Duties shall go to the 
aid of aOTicultural education. It is deserving of consideration as to 
how far it may be expedient for counties to group themselves 
toorether. or how far it mav be advisable for each countv to work 
independently. This is really a matter to be determined 
locally, as it only concerns the agricultural centres themselves. 
Such centres are being established, as at Leeds, Newcastle, and 
elsewhere, whilst Bangor has constituted a centre for the last 
two years. These provincial centres would localise the agricul- 
tural interests of the various parts of the country, and would 
operate against that bureaucratic system which is ever tending 
towards centralisation. The centres would conveniently in- 
fluence very considerable areas. The latter object might possibly 
be effected by commissioning local teachers, who would be 
appointed, presumably, by the central authority itself in each 
district. Tliese local teachers should be qualified men, who would 
be competent to impart technical instruction in the villages and 
remote rural districts, in a manner not hitherto attempted. In 
that way would be raised up a local network of agricultural 
education which would permeate eveiy region of the country. 
This syetem would make provision not only for the subjects 
