July 1. The delay in the administration of the Irish Land Purchase Act in Ireland; speech by Lord Crewe.

July 3.-Prohibition of Medical Practice by Companies Bill is read a third time.

July 4.-Qualification of Women (County and Borough Councils) Bill passes into Committee The strength of Channel Fleet; statement by Lord Tweedmouth.

July 8.-Territorial and Reserve Forces Bill in Committee. July 9.-Debate on the Army Bill continued; a proviso that no financial assistance be given to school battalions where the boys are under sixteen is objected to.

July 10.-Evicted Tenants; the motion of Lord Donoughmore to obtain the names of all the evicted tenants is refused by the Governinent, and the motion is withdrawn.

July 11.-In Committee the consideration of the Qualification of Women (on County and Borough Councils) is resumed; the Bill is passed and reported to the House.

July 15.-The Qualification of Women (County and Town Councils, Scotland) Bill read second time.

July 16.-Bills advanced: Motor-cars, Crown Estates. July 17.-Lord Portsmouth on the Territorial and Reserve Forces Bill.

July 18.-Territorial and Reserve Forces Bill is considered; on report it is decided that cadet corps and rifle clubs shall receive financial assistance for boys under sixteen.

July 23.-The Territorial and Reserve Forces Bill is read a third time.

July 24.-The Bishop of Birmingham requests a Royal Com. mission to inquire into the teaching, endowment and government of the Universities of Oxford and Cambridge; speech by Lord Crewe.

July 25.-Lord Londonderry and the Board of Education; Lord Crewe explains the general effect of the new regulations. July 26.-Several Bills receive the Royal assent. July 29.-An additional Judge for the High Court is agreed to ... The Congo Free State a system of terrorism and spoliation of the natives; speeches by Lord Monkswell, the Archbishop of Canterbury, and Lord Lansdowne.

July 30.-The grant of £50,000 to Lord Cromer passed without opposition.

House of Commons.

July 1.-Finance Bill in Committee: debate on 'the Tea duty.

July 2.-Finance Bill in Committee.

July 3.-Finance Bill: Clause on the Income Tax is discussed and progress reported.

July 4.-Irish Estimates discussed.

July 5.-Finance: Irish Land Purchase Bill, 1903; speeches by Mr. J. Redmond, Mr. Birrell, and Mr. Wyndham.

July 8.-Evicted Tenants (Ireland) Bill: Second reading passed, and the Bill referred to a Committee of the whole House.

July 9.-Mr. Ramsey MacDonald introduces a Labour Bill to provide work through public authorities for the unemployed... Finance Bill in Committee: Government majority of 137 on the Sugar Tax Amendment.

July 10.-Land Values (Scotland) Bill read a second time.

July 11-Supply: Education Department, Secondary Schools and Training Colleges; the vote is passed; Mr. McKenna makes a statement on his policy for securing fair play in the training colleges.

July 12.-Address for a new Judge: motion carried... Telegraph (Money) Bill discussed.

July 15.-Mr. Lea and the Times: Lord R. Cecil's motion on the privileges of the House; the Prime Minister's amendment is carried by 235 votes to 120 Mr. Lyttelton's Vote of Censure of the Government on the question of Imperial Preference is debated, and defeated by 293 votes.

...

July 16.-The Finance Bill is ordered for third reading. July 17. Committee stage of the Evicted Tenants (Ireland) Bill begins.

July 18.-Supply-Home Office Vote : Mr. Gladstone advises that a Special Department for Mines be added to his Depart

ment.

July 19.-Criminal Appeal Bill: report stage.

July 22. Mr. Balfour draws the attention of the Speaker to the proposed vote of £100,000 for the construction of elementary schools, thus frustrating the opposition of the Lords. The Speaker declined to interfere The Evicted Tenants (Ireland) Bill in Committee: the Prime Minister's resolution is carried by 293 votes to 85.

July 23.-Evicted Tenants (Ireland) Bill debate resumed; after the rejection of various amendments, the first and second clauses, and a necessary financial resolution, are carried by large majorities ... The Metropolitan Water Board Bill, as amended in Committee, is discussed.

July 24.-The Prime Minister brings up a message from the King recommending a grant of £50,000 to Lord Cromer Mr. Gladstone presents a Bill to provide reformatories for young persons convicted of indictable offences Evicted Tenants (Ireland) Bill continued discussion.

July 25.-Committee on Irish Estimates.

July 26th.-The Prime Minister states the course of public business to the end of the Session. Mr. Balfour criticises. The Prime Minister's resolution is carried by 233 votes to 58.

July 29.-The report stage of the Evicted Tenants (Ireland) Bill is completed ... The consideration of the Criminal Appeal Bill as amended is proceeded with.

July 30.-Finance Bill read a third time by 232 votes to 91 ...Grant to Lord Cromer of £50,000 passed by 254 votes to 107.

FERTILISING FARMERS' BRAINS, AND ADDING 12 MILLION DOLLARS TO IOWA CROPS. "THE Farmer's Debt to Science" is the title of a striking paper by Frank W. Bicknell in the American Review of Reviews, in which he describes how the State of Iowa has "farmed with the head,” trained its farmers scientifically, and reaped a golden reward in vastly augmented harvests. Ten years ago Professor Curtiss, Dean of the Faculty of Agriculture in the Iowa State College, wanted to get closer to experienced farmers. He started the first of the famous

now

"short courses at the College in Ames in the first two weeks in January, 1899. Its subject was stockjudging. About 250 men, many of them successful stock breeders, attended. The "short course includes in its curriculum corn and grain judging, dairying, horticulture, and domestic science. The attendance reaches about 800, including a number of farmers' wives. The methods of farming have greatly improved in consequence. Judge Deemer says:

Good judges tell me that the yield of corn has increased at least five bushels per acre as a result of this corn school. The results educationally have been very great. The farmer down here and better than that, the farmer's boy-has concluded that his business is as honourable and worthy as any other, and that it takes just as much brains to be a good farmer as to excel in anything else. The result will be and has been to keep the boy on the farm. He holds his head as high as any one else; and down here we no longer speak of "hayseeds."

AN EDUCATIONAL PICNIC.

The second line of attack was the local agricultural experiment stations begun in 1903 on the county poor farm. In the autumn

a farmers' picnic was held on the farm to discuss results, and more than three thousand persons attended. The seed used is taken from the planter boxes of as many farmers in the vicinity as possible, is planted without testing, and given the same treatment as that bestowed upon the ordinary fields in the neighbourhood. Each man's corn is planted in an identified plat. Each farmer whose seed has been used comes in the fall to the picnic to see how his compares with his neighbour's corn. More convincing proof could not be offered.

The effect has been immediately noticeable, not only on the corn crop but on the standard of farming. A hard-headed old farmer, sixty years of age, found that though he had raised horses all his life, "he did not know the p'ints of a good horse." But he went to these "short courses" and learned. With 500 others, he studied corn, and in a year or two won the grand championship prize for the best corn. Now, as President of the State Corn Growers' Association, he is fond of telling farmers how well it paid him to go to college at sixty. He adds:

I no longer see things in the same light. Life on the farm is full and interesting every day. It is no longer a dreary round of following the furrows.

SEED-CORN SPECIAL TRAINS.

The most widely known feature of this work that has given Iowa her leadership in the rapid dissemination and quick and effective application of improved methods in agriculture was the seed-corn special trains :

:

These were started in 1904 by Professor Holden, with the co-operation of the railways of the State. During the Spring seasons of 1904, 1905, and 1906 these educational trains travelled over 1,000 miles, made 789 stops, and more than 150,000 people heard 1,265 lectures, sometimes in a large passenger car, carried for the purpose, sometimes on the station platform, and occasionally in a hall. The trains were run on regular schedules and good audiences were always waiting. The effect was almost instantaneous :

The lowest was twenty-nine bushels per acre, in 1897, when the value was only 17 cents. The yield in 1903, the last year before the seed-corn special trains, was thirty-one bushels. In 1904 it was thirty-six, in 1905 it was 372, and in 1906, when the farmers were getting the full benefit of what they had learned, it was forty-one bushels per acre. The State had 9,443,960 acres of corn that year, and it was worth 33 cents a bushel on the farm December 1st. Suppose the gain creditable to the educational campaign to have been only four bushels per acre, the increase over the previous year, and we have a gain of 37,775,840 bushels, which at the current price of 33 cents was worth 12,345,027 dollars, or about 10 per cent. of the value of the entire crop.

The fact is that farmers, "from being mere machines, have been admitted to the wonderful fairyland of science. They know how and why things are done, so it is more interesting to cause things to grow, and to cause them to grow right." The instruction given to the farmers' wives in domestic science is bearing good fruit in adding to the health and happiness of the farmers' households. The women confess that they and their children are healthier since they learned to bake their bread thoroughly and chew their food well. This is one of the results of the bread-making contests held all over the State.

A Word to My Helpers.

LAST month I told the story of M. Van den Brandelar and his work in the Leyden University. He like some other of our Helpers is an ardent Esperantist, and I have been asked to suggest to those Helpers, who also feel the necessity of having some such international key language, to endeavour to interest the Literary Associations, Debating Clubs, or Discussion Classes in their neighbourhood, asking them to place Esperanto upon the lecture list for the forthcoming session. I will do my part by lending a book giving the material for such a lecture, to any Helper or Esperantist who will undertake to deliver it.

IN a note in the August Treasury Mr. Anthony Deane says what we need is a League for the Disregard of the Weather, not disregard of the weather as a conversational topic, which would reduce half the population to silence, but in a practical way. Members of the League would carry out their arrangements, garden parties, cricket matches, etc., regardless of the rain. To get wet hurts no one, provided you change your clothes afterwards. Such a League has a great future before it. And in accord with the usual perversity of things, as soon as the L.D.W. becomes strong we shall have a succession of brilliant summers.