er the more directly economic branch of our activities. Irish
oysters are already attaining considerable celebrity, owing to the
distance of our oyster beds from contaminating influences; and it is
hoped that when the Department's experiments are complete the Irish
oyster will be made subject to direct control for all its life, until it
is despatched to market. Attention is also being given to the relative
value of seed oysters, other than native, for relaying on Irish beds.

On the more directly scientific side, the Department has undertaken the
survey of the trawling grounds around the coast to obtain an exact
knowledge of the movements of the marketable fish at different times of
their life, so that we may be guided in making by-laws and regulations
by a full knowledge of the times and places at which protection is
necessary. The biological and physical conditions of the western seas
are also being studied in special reference to the mackerel fishery,
with the object of correlating certain readily observable phenomena with
the movements of the fish, and so of predicting the probable success of
a fishery in a particular season. The routine observations of the
Department's fishery cruiser have been so arranged as to synchronise
with those of other nations, in order to assist the international scheme
of investigation now in progress, wherever its objects and those of the
Department are the same. While these various practical projects have
been in operation, we have done our best to keep abreast of the times by
sending missions to other countries, consisting of an expert accompanied
by practical Irishmen who would bring home information which was
applicable to the conditions of our own country. The first batch of
itinerant instructors in agriculture, whose training for the important
work of laying the foundations for our whole scheme of agricultural
instruction I have referred to, were taken on a continental tour by the
Professor of Agriculture at the Royal College of Science, in order to
give special advantages to a portion of our outdoor staff upon the
success of whose work the rate of our progress in agricultural
development might largely depend. And not only have we in our first
three years gleaned as much information as possible by sending qualified
Irishmen to study abroad the industries in which we were particularly
interested, but we also took steps to give the mass of our people at
home an opportunity of studying