94 
I^HE Journal oi' the Royal 
as the " Minor Industries," which I take it is a very 
comprehensive term, embracing farming of all sort 
outside of sugar plantations, the growing of fruits and 
vegetables, cattle breeding, dairy farming, bee and 
poultry keeping, and, in fact, all small industrial employ- 
ment dealing with the products of the soil. Now the 
Department of Agriculture and Technical Education for 
Ireland retains a staif of such instructors, all experts in 
the several industries which are sought to be encour- 
aged there, each of whom is available for any village or 
country district community who may associate them- 
selves together and raise sufficient funds to pay the 
officers' actual travelling expenses, and the instructor — 
who may be a lady or a gentleman, as both sexes are 
employed in this educational work of the Department 
— is sent down on application to the Central Office and 
delivers a series of lectures supplemented by actual 
manual instruction and demonstrations in the special 
subject under treatment. Our local Board of Agricul- 
ture in like manner now has at the disposal of the 
village farmers one or two Instructors in Agriculture, 
who are sent out occasionally as desired, to give 
instruction in the theory and practice of agriculture 
and horticulture, and, no doubt, in time the scope of 
these itinerant instructors will be extended, as has 
already been the case in regard to the Imperial Depart- 
ment of ^Agriculture for the West Indies amongst the 
various British islands of the group under the able 
direction of Dr. Morris, C.M.G., the Imperial Commis- 
sioner, whose head -quarters are at Barbados. 
I have recently received, through the courtesy of the 
Vice-President of the Department in Ireland, a number 
