AGRICULTURAL EDUCATION IN SWITZERLAND.

Globe, Volume IV, Issue 448, 20 November 1875, Page 4

AGRICULTURAL EDUCATION IN SWITZERLAND.

{From the Pall Mall Gazette.) The English tourist is often a very prosaic and practical creature, and therefore it may not be altogether unseasonable to call attention to the scheme of agricultural education lately established in Canton Vaud. On the 4th of September, 1874, a cantonal law was passed to improve agricultural teaching in that canton. Vaud is the third Hwiss canton in extent, and also in the number of its people, and hence this new system of agricultural education is more remarkable than if it had been introduced into a canton of less importance. It is also novel in its character, because it is established not for the benefit of large tenant farmers or landed proprietors, but for a miscellaneous mass of small proprietors, some of whom are farmers in the stricter sense of the word, and others who are chiefly engaged in the cultivation of the vine. This State system of teaching thus differs essentially from that higher kind of which an example though not a very flourishing one, is to be found in the State Agricultural College at Gembloux, in Belgium, where a regular agricultural degree, that of Ingenieur Agricole, is granted. The Swiss course commenced last November and ended in March of the present year. It was entirely gratuitous and open as well to natives of other cantons, as to those of Vaud itself. It thus becomes a more essentially national and noteworthy feature. There is one apparent drawback to the scheme —the number of subjects was so large that it would be impossible to study them with such accuracy, in the limited time allowed as to enable a student to obtain more than a superficial knowledge of any one of them, even though not all of the nineteen subjects was taken up. The place of instruction was Lausanne ; at the end of the course examinations were held sufficiently stringent to test the knowledge of the candidate, but in no way competitive in their character. The nature of the course may be denned in a rough way as an attempt to teach the scientific groundwork of agriculture, and to point out the best practical modes of carrying out its various operations. Though we have spoken of the course as ore of agricultural teaching, the ensuing mention of the several subjects will show that it embraces many matters which in England would not be considered strictly agricultural, though a knowledge of them is a necessary part of the education of the Swiss farmer. The firstsubject, "Agrologie," is the study of the various kinds of soils and their composition and properties ; the second, " Agriculture," is concerned with crops, cereal and other. The third subject is chemistry, but limited to the study of the composition of the salts which more directly affect the soil and its crops. Agricultural botany and meteorology are fourth and fifth in the programme, and geology, also of a limited kind, the sixth. The above formed the more strictly theoretical portions of the course, the remainder being to a great extent practical. These consist of horticulture and practical gardening, arboriculture —that is, the making of orchards and the choice of trees, and the vines, their growth and subsequent use. This again was followed by a course upon forestry. Later on succeeded Zootechnie, or the management of animals, bees, weights and measures, agricultural machinery and buildings, the laws concerning forests, draining, and contracts of service. Lastly, there are a series of eight lectures upon milk. It will be obvious that such a course as the above, if carefully followed by a young farmer for several successive winters, must produce a decidedly more scientific and intelligent class of agriculturists. It is equally obvious however, that such a course would be impossible without an excellent and general system of primary teaching, and also that it is to a great extent rendered more practicable owing to the long and inclement winters of a mountainous country, where farm work is altogether suspended.