288  National  Agricultural  Examination  Board. 
“ At  some  recent  Examinations  held  at  Reading  it  has  been 
stated  that  candidates  who  had  been  pupils  of  the  Reading 
Institute  had  an  advantage  over  strangers  in  the  matter  of  the 
milk  supply— in  short,  that  they  were  given  milk  to  make  up 
into  cheeses  which  had  been  sent  in  by  the  farms  usually 
supplying  the  Institute  with  milk.  To  a certain  extent  such 
candidates  would  secure  an  unfair  advantage,  as  they  would 
be  conversant  with  the  peculiarities  and  cheese-making  qualities 
of  the  milk.  This  year,  to  avoid  any  semblance  of  favouritism, 
the  whole  of  the  usual  supply  was  separated  and  the  cream 
mixed  with  other  purchased  cream  and  dealt  out  impartially  to 
all  candidates.  The  milk  supply  for  the  whole  of  the  cheeses 
made  during  the  Examination  was  obtained  from  a West  of 
England  creamery.  Before  being  dealt  out  to  the  candidates 
it  was  placed  in  one  large  vessel  and  carefully  mixed  so  that 
each  candidate  received  milk  of  exactly  similar  quality  and  in 
the  same  condition  as  to  ripeness,  &c.  This  method  of  obtain- 
ing and  dealing  with  the  milk  placed  all  candidates  on  an  equal 
footing,  as  none  of  them  had  any  previous  knowledge  of  the 
condition  of  the  milk  supply. 
“ The  papers  set  the  candidates  this  year  were  answered  fairly 
well,  but  no  better  than  at  some  previous  Examinations.  Most 
of  the  candidates  were  well  informed  and  sound  in  the  prin- 
ciples of  Cheese-making,  but  lacked  knowledge  of  business 
matters  relating  to  the  management  of  creameries  and  cheese 
factories.  Future  candidates  would  do  well  to  devote  more 
attention  to  the  business  side  of  dairying,  as  without  such 
knowledge  their  management  of  laige  dairies  would  end  in 
failure.  Most  of  the  failures  were  in  the  written  and  oral  part 
of  the  Examination.  I regret  that  this  was  so,  as  some  excellent 
and  really  practical  cheese-makers  were  amongst  these  failures.” 
6.  The  Examiner  in  Chemistry  and  Bacteriology  at  the 
English  centre  (Dr.  J.  Augustus  Yoelcker,  M.A.,  B.Sc.),  states 
that  in  this  part  of  the  Examination  a distinctly  higher  standard 
has  been  attained  all  round  than  he  has  met  with  before. 
Questions  one  would  probably  have  hesitated  to  put  a few 
years  back  have  on  this  occasion  been  answered  with  more 
than  fair  accuracy,  and,  in  several  cases,  with  real  excellence. 
More  especially  has  attention  been  paid  to  the  bacteriological 
side  of  the  subject,  and  would  mark  a clear  advance  in  the 
teaching  of  this  science  in  its  application  to  Dairying.  The 
question  which  presented  the  greatest  difficulty  was  that 
relating  to  the  bacteriological  examination  of  water,  and  this 
was  either  omitted,  or  but  lightly  touched  upon,  or,  on  the 
other  hand,  was  more  than  ordinarily  well  handled.  In  the 
viva  voce  part  of  the  Examination  the  general  impression  given 
was  that  though  the  application  of  Chemistry  to  dairy  matters 
