AGRICULTURAL SCIENCE.

Dominion, Volume 5, Issue 1269, 26 October 1911, Page 10

AGRICULTURAL SCIENCE.

THE SYDNEY UNIVERSITY COURSE. The following particulars about the course in agricultural science nt the Sydney University are given in a Sydney exchange:— Bal'cre entering the university intending students are rwjuirrd to pass the ordinary science matriculation examination. The course leading to a degree in agricultural science (E.Sc. Agric.) la-ts. four years, aid commoners in March of each year. In addition, candidates for the degree are required to produce a certificate cf having performed twelve months' practical work at an agricultural college or approved farm. Thesa 12 j months need not be continuous, however, and it would be po>sible for a student lo do his practical work in the long vacations and graduate exactly four years after starting on his course. The total fees payable at the university amount to .S3 15s. _ In their first year students receive instruction _in chemistry, bio'ogy, geology, and physics, a thorough understanding of which sciences forms a necessary preliminary to the more specialised instruction of the remaining years. In their second year chemistry is further studied, as well as a special course of botany dealing with the identification cf plants, and also with plant phy-'ology. Agricultural geology is another subject of the second year, in which the knowledge gained iu the first year is applied to such problems as the relation of soils to their ecological formation, the occurrence of deposits of agricultural importance, and the great artesian water question. Second-year students also bare a complete course of lectures on economic entomology, in which they lx>come familiar with the various insect pests of Australia, the damage they do. and the means of prevo-itia-n and remedy. Professor Watt • fiki give=- in this year his first course of lectures on the principles of agriculture, dr-jling chiefly with the soil and methods of soil improvement, cultivation, manuring, drainage, irrigation, and the conservation of sail moisture. In their third year students take agricultural chemistry, in which they not only receive lectures, but analyse such substances as soils, manures, feeding .•tuffs, milk, and dairy products, insecticides, and fungicides. Agricultural botany (dsaling with the identification and life history of agricultural plants and noxious and poisonous wee.-ls, budding, grafiing, pruning, and plant breeding) is also dealt with in a practical way as well as by means of lectures. A course cf lectures and practical work on plant diseases caused by fungi-rusts, mildews, siiint. potato blight, ok 1 ., forms part of the third year's work. In addition, there are several veterinary subje-.'fs in this y : \ar taught in the newlycslablishal veterinary sober;!. In iheir last year students are require! la attend a second course of lecture* on | the principles cf agriculture, in which an account will bo siven of the principal ' farm crops grown in Australia, the lot- ' fit improved methods of cultivation, har- ; ve-ting, tic, as well as an account of 1 the various' breeds of d-'mc=tioated e.ni- • iiialr, their suitabiliiv fe-r var'.ons purposes and different district.'.- the principles r,f dairying, etc. The principles underlying successful fruit culture nud viticulture are also dealt with, and the important subject of forestry in included in the Inst year. In addition, students attend courses of Ifi-tures, in same cases with practical ini struction, on agricultural economics, sgrii cultural engine-ring, r.g.riculturnl bac- - teriolngy, and on? vrlerinnry subject.