1 Jon, 1900.] QUEENSLAND AGRICULTURAL JOURNAL. 453 
| Weather will permit, they should either be mown down or exposed to the 
_ atmosphere by shallow ploughing before the seeds have ripened ; thus there will 
€ very little of a second crop of pests to worry the farmer at planting time. 
ome people have asked how to banish weeds from the land. They might as 
Well ask how to banish dust from their houses. So long as certain plants have 
Seeds provided with downy wings, as are the thistles, wild cotton, and others, so 
long will the farmer have to continue his warfare against the weeds. 
Without weeds a farm would become a sort of elysium, Es en would reduce 
the sturdy British or Australian farmer toa state of inglorious ease, and life 
Would eventually become so irksome, for want of employment for himself and 
Is horses whilst his crops were growing, that he would soon be found wishing 
for some pest to fight. If all plant and animal parasites were extirpated, and 
all weeds banished, thousands of people would be thrown out of work, produce 
of all kinds would be so plentiful that prices would not enable the farmer to 
pay wages, and thus things would be generally upset all the world over. Thus 
Weeds, which, after all, are only plants useful or otherwise in the wrong place, 
exercise a beneficent influence unless they happen to be of the nut-grass type— 
Meradicable and good for neither man nor beast. And this brings us back to 
the question, How to deal with weeds. We have shown how to deal with 
ordinary weeds, but the man who will tell us how to deal with nut-grass is, 
So far, amongst the nations yet unborn. Still, as that cactus pest, the prickly 
pear, appears at last to have found a human enemy capable of utterly destroy- 
ing it, so another wise man may arise equal to the more difficult task of coping 
Successfully with nut-grass. ‘The Curator of the Brisbane Botanic Gardens 
has met with much suecess in keeping it down in those grounds, but the 
Pernicious little nuts are-all there, only waiting for a slacking of vigilance to 
deck the flower beds with a dense and beautiful covering of green. 
AGRICULTURAL SCHOOL, CEYLON. 
We take the following from the report in the Agricultural Magazine, Colombo, 
of the annual prize-giving of the institution. The principal’s report dealt, 
amongst several matters of local political interest, with the past, present, and 
future of the school, and some of his remarks will be of interest to Queens- 
landers for comparison with the position of the Queensland Agricultural College 
at Gatton. 
“As regards numbers,” he said, “our largest number on the roll last year 
was twenty-two, and the average for the year sixteen. 
“These are rather below the normal: the full complement being twenty- 
five, and the usual average twenty. The decrease is to be attributed to the 
uncertainty attaching to the future of the school. Indeed, the wonder is that,. 
under present conditions, our numbers are what they are. In India, with 
greater inducements for the study of agriculture, and with prospects of 
employment to trained students, there are instances of the attendance at 
agricultural classes being far more disappointing. Were we only half as 
fortunate as our sister institutions in India as regards financial aid, provision. 
for a thorough course of training, and inducements offered to students, the 
School of Agriculture would be rather a different institution to what it is. 
“On the results of the final examination held last November, three 
Students became entitled to the first-class certificate of merit granted by the 
Department. 
“Veterinary training continues to form part of the school course, and already 
three old boys of the school have fully qualified as veterinary surgeons, while 
two others have lately been appointed as stock inspectors. The present Govern- 
Ment veterinary scholar is J. E. Fernando—also a late student of the school— 
Who left for Bombay at the end of last year to prosecute his studies at the 
veterinary college there. He succeeded Veterinary-Surgeon Chinniah, who, 
With commendable enterprise, started practice in Colombo on his own account— 
& departure which, I believe, he has no reason to regret. 
