CANTERBURY AGRICULTURAL SCHOOL.

Oamaru Mail, Volume IV, Issue 1319, 12 July 1880, Page 2

CANTERBURY AGRICULTURAL SCHOOL.

(from the lyttleton times.) The backwardness of the public in taking advantage of the Agricultural School ought now to rank as a thing of the past. It is not only that the terrible preliminary ordeal of a certain examination has been wisely- dispensed with* To thate negative temptation the I>ire©to>r has added a positive, incentive to. those who may want to give their sons a practical as well as scientific farming education. Mr. Ivey's sketch of the work he proposes to make his pupils go through during the three years they are to spend under his care is the best thing in connection with the Agricultural School that baa yet been published. The pupila are to gain not merely theoretical instruction, which they may absorb or forget s.s they please. Lectures on agriculture, chemistry, biology, botany, veterinary science, and the rest, are to be supplemented by practice in the field, on the farm, in the laboratory, the cattle stalls, and the stockyard. The practice, moreover is to be real. It is not a daily saunter in gloves and muffler, or pugree and dustcoat, according to the season, which is contemplated. The young men who elect to learn anything from Mr. Ivey must get up early in the morning and put their hands to the plough, they must milk cows, hitoh up and drive horses, trim hedges, prune trees, fold sheep — in short, do with their own hands the whole work of a farm. The special work of special seasons is likewise liberally provided for, the theoretical then giving way largely to the practical. It is important to remember that the farm on which this judicious mixing of the theoretical and practical is to be put in | force is to be conducted, not as a model farm, but on economic principles. On the whole, it is evident that for the study of farming, no better institution could be wished for than the Agricultural College. If there is a fault, it seems to be that the course of instruction does not appear to sive sufficient importance to the subject of live stock other than dairy stock, which die Strathleven experiment has mayked a» specially worthy of attention in the immediate future. This no doubt will be remedied when the institution gets into working orde.r, As the basis of working is and meat will shortly assume a very niuch greater importance in agricultural economy, the oertaintyof the development we have indicated may be taken Jor granted.