lowest drudgery. The two products named would only provide employment for a short time in each year, 
but, with the addition of drying fruits, gathering ten, preparing medicinal herbs, and, ns has been suggested, 
the steeping and scutching of flax, full employment for the twelvemonth could bo provided. With a 
judicious choice of such occupations or branches of industry, those schools might be made in a few years, 
to a great extent, if not entirely, self-supporting, and it would be not only advantageous to themselves but 
to the State to keep the lads and girls until they had been fully instructed in the several now industries. As 
soon as there were mulberry or ailautus trees of sufficient age, by the work of a few weeks in summer in 
tending silk-worms, each child could earn enough to pay all its expenses for the year. And the same 
might be said of opium, while this last has the advantage of being gathered within a few months of sowing 
the seed. It is with a full knowledge of what may bo done by children in some of these, to us, novel 
industries, that they are specially recommended by many of your correspondents for our State establish- 
ments. But there is a difficulty, not overlooked cither, and that is to find persons competent to teach them. 
There appears to bo no want of skill in the actual work needed, even in the colony, but few skilled workmen 
are good teachers of children. The real difficulty, it is said, will be to find a person or persons with the 
faculty of organizing such a system as will render the skilled workmen or workwomen and the children 
of mutual advantage, each to the other. 
Rdrai, Education. 
Query 13. What means, heifond the facilities ahead;/ existing, might he chosen to diffuse 
industrial and agricultural education through the colony ? 
The want of education seems to be widely felt, for not one of the questions has boon so generally or 
fully answered as this. Every possible mode of instruction is indicated as desirable for one or other section 
of the rural population. Many of your correspondents are in favor of lectures, and, according to their widely 
diverging ideas, these should vary from lectures of the very highest class, delivered in the halls of the 
University by a professor of agriculture, to the homely teaching of a peripatetic lecturer at every farmer’s 
fireside throughout the country. And as to schools, the range is equally wide, from an agricultural college 
on the model of that at Cirencester to the evening school for boys and farm laborers, at which the teaching 
should bo of a special kind and the payments very small. Nor has there been any omission of the means 
for teaching adults, including agricultural and produce shows of every kind, farmers’ clubs, model farms or 
gardens, and books, tracts, or pamphlets, specially prepared and published for use in the colony. In the 
answers to this question agriculture seems to have almost entirely occupied tho minds of the writers, other 
industries having been but lightly and rarely touched on. 
AGUICULTURAL LECTURES. 
Lectures are much in vogue nowaday-s, and many of your correspondents seem to consider, that in 
this way information might be imparted most quickly and generally. Aware of the difficulty of finding men 
qualified for this task, some suggest that lecturers, well acquainted with the wants and practice of the 
colony, should bo sent to other countries, such as France, Germany, Italy, Algiers, or even China and 
Japan, to pick up fresh ideas and useful plants for the benefit of agriculturalists here. And while learning 
in these countries they might furnish valuable reports on the agricultural practice or rural industries likely 
to be suitable for colonial adoption. When a few competent lecturers are either found or trained for tho 
pui-pose, they might be employed partly in addressing to the members of agricultural societies or farmers’ 
clubs papers carefully prepared for publication, and for the remainder of their time in travelling through the 
country. But on this j)oint it is best to give the opinions of some of your correspondents in their own words. 
Thus, tho Ballarat gentleman before quoted .says, in answer to this question — “By the appointment of a few 
Government agents or travellers, who should be always on the move through their respective districts. They 
should bo men of ability and energy, with good ideas of agricultural and industrial pursuits : men of good 
.and simple manners, who could associate with all classes of society, draw attention to defects in any system 
of culture or manufacture, point out errors and remedies, recommend improvements and alterations ; and they 
should report quarterly to some responsible head the various merits and demerits they had noted in their 
respective districts, the rates of progress and improvement, together with their own suggestions — such reports 
to bo published regularly and widely circulated.” An answer from Heathcoto is in a similar strain, viz. — 
“ By lectures in the most central places, and expositions of the result of analyses of a few of the soils in eaeh 
place, and also of the cereals and vegetables grown in such district. If such information and any other 
considered useful were published in a cheap pamphlet form, I believe it would be of advantage to agricul- 
turists.” Then, tho answer of a settlor near Harrow is : — “Lecturers skilled theoretically and practically 
in scientific agriculture, as established by the chemical researches of Liebig and others, might be sent through 
tho country, who should examine carefully the natural advantages and capabilities of each district, and 
embody the results of their investigations in lectures to tho agriculturists ; pointing out to them in what w.ay 
tho soil of their respective districts might bo most profitably cultivated. These lectures might be afterwards 
printed and circulated amongst those interested.” One more from tho many answers in favor of lectures 
will suffice. It is from tho president of tho Newstead Shire Council, showing how agricultural education 
might bo diffused through the country by “the employment by the Government of a qualified practical 
and scientific agriculturist, who would be capable of delivering and publishing lectures, these to bo 
circulated amongst the various agricultural societies. They, in their turn, should supply information 
on questions put, and furnish treatises on matters that may have come under their notice by practical 
experience. I think, also, analyses of the different soils should be made.” It is pointed out that, as there 
is a very general desire amongst tho farmers for information and improvement, lectures would bo well 
attended ; but to come in contact with the bulk of that class lecturers would have to travel through every 
district and bo content to address a few at a time. Set lectures, prepared for delivery to a picked audience, 
and after-publication, would of course bo needed, but homely instruction of a less formal character is more 
generally asked for and would, it is supposed, be likely to effect most good. 
AGRICULTURAL SCHOOLS. 
As before indicated, a few of your correspondents r.sk for an agricultural college, in which young men 
could be thoroughly trained in practice and well grounded in all the requisite sciences; but the majority are 
more moderate in their demands, asking for scliools of dillcrent grades. The difficulty of providing for 
