158 PAST AND PRESENT OF exhibitions to be held in each of the coun¬ ties. This "Encouragement of Agriculture and Local Industry," as the function of the Exhibition Commissioners was called, was carried on until 1889. In this year the gov¬ ernment made provision whereby assistance might be granted to private companies who would hold exhibitions in Charlottetown or in the different counties. In 1880 six hun¬ dred dollars had been set apart for an ex¬ hibition in Kings county and a similar amount for another in Prince . One thou¬ sand dollars was appropriated for a general exhibition which was held in Charlotte - town. In 1897 the last county exhibition was held and for two years the province was without the stimulus of competition in the production of improved agricultural products. An exhibition was held in 1900 under the auspices of the Charlottetown Exhibition and Driving Park Association. This Association has planned and held a Provincial Exhibition every year since that date, with the exception of the year 1901, when the farmers were again without this opportunity to stimulate and improve their ideas. The Provincial Legislature, recog¬ nizing the importance of such institutions, votes four thousand dollars annually for the Provincial Exhibition. In 1903 the Department of Agriculture held their first annual seed fair with the co¬ operation of the Dominion Seed Division and the Exhibition Association. Since that time the Seed Fair has been held regularly. In April, 1905, classes in actual grain judg¬ ing and weed seed identification work were added, and so popular did those classes be¬ come that they were conducted at six cen¬ tral points throughout the province in 1906. For more than half a century the teach¬ ing of agriculture has been associated with our public school system. In 1855 the in¬ spector of schools, Mr. John M. Stark , re¬ ported the delivery of three lectures in dif¬ ferent parts of the country on agricultural chemistry. He distributed upwards of two hundred copies of Prof. Johnson 's Cate¬ chism of Agricultural Chemistry and Geol¬ ogy, and a large number of copies of "Hints on Agriculture," by Judge Peters . The de- sire for information among the farmers was most gratifying, but their ability to appre¬ ciate "the purely scientific even when sim¬ plified and brought home to the concerns of their every-day life" was limited because of the lack of a better primary education. With true perception the inspector recommended the teaching of the elements of the science in the public schools, and advocated that Johnston's Catechism be supplied at a cheap rate to the pupils. In 1866 W. H. Buck- erfield, the school inspector, recommended to the government "that the formation of the Model Farm near Charlottetown af¬ forded an opportunity of giving instruction in scientific agriculture to a few of the young men of the Island (one for each county) in that institution." No notice seems to have been taken of this suggestion. A few lectures on agriculture were given to the students of Prince of Wales College, but it was not until the session of 1890-91 that the college was given a duly recognized department of agriculture. Professor Shut- tleworth, afterwards Professor of Chemis¬ try at the Ontario Agricultural College, at Guelph, was its first instructor. The de¬ partment has continued to make steady progress, and during the present year ex¬ cellent facilities for the teaching of agri¬ culture are to be added under the direction of Dr. James W . Robertson, through the generosity of Sir William Macdonald .