TEACHING AGRICULTURE IN SCOTLAND.

Otago Witness, Issue 2983, 17 May 1911, Page 23

TEACHING AGRICULTURE IN SCOTLAND.

Scottish farmers are evidently realising the advantages and valuta of a training m an agricultural college. At the annua. distribution of prises at the West of Scotland Agricultural College it was reported that the number of students attending during the winter session was the highest on record, and everv year appeared to show a. steady increase in the number. The total •was 287, as compared with 232 last session, and the enrolments had amounted to 890, as against 717 last year. In addition, there was an enrolment of 122 in the winter classes held at the Dairy School, compared "with 17 last year, while last summer there was an enrolment at the Dairy School of 219 individual students compared with 103 in 1909. Lecturers in agriculture had boon, appointed for all the counties associated with the college, and comprehensive schemes of agricultural education were being carried on by them. Similar developments had also taken place in forestry and in horticulture, and 88 school gardens had now been laid down throughout the college area under the supervision of the lecturer in horticulture, while the work cf the poultry department had recently been remodelled on more extended lines. Field cxoeWments on the manuring and seeding of farm _ crops, and on various problems involved in the ctiiltivation of crops are to be conducted during the ensuing season on about 140 farms scattered ovt?r the counties administered by the college, but apart from these experiments, the governors had been fully alive to the fact that it would be highly desirable to have a department instituted in

the college expressly for the _ purpose of research. It had been pointed out on numerous occasions' that that would be of great advantage to farmers in the western counties to have agricultural problems of importance to them investigated at a station instituted in their midst. Hopes were entertained that important progress would be made in this direction in the near future with ithe aid of grants to bo obtained from the Development Fund. Last summer a very important addition was made to the courses of instruction given by the college in the opening of a demonstration class at the College Farm on the points of dairy breeds of cattle. Its success was so great lhat arrangements had been made for a complete course of instruction in fairm live (stock, including cattle, horses, sheep, and pigs, to be given during the ensuing summer session. That, it was believed, would give the most complete course of instruction in live stock that had ever been undertaken in Scotland.