BRITISH ASSOCIATION CONFERENCE. 193
C. vulgaris Schrad., var. aurantiaca, on oak wood.
Dictydium cancellatum (Batsch) Macbr., on oak wood.
Arcyria incarnata Pers., var. fulgens.
The President proposed the thanks of the meeting to our leaders for
their various services during the day; these were accorded by acclamation,
and the meeting terminated.
REPORT OF THE CLUB'S DELEGATE TO THE
MEETING OF THE CONFERENCE OF DELE-
GATES TO THE BRITISH ASSOCIATION, 1925.
By Professor J. W. GREGORY, D.Sc., F.R.S., Etc.
THE Conferences of Delegates to the British Association from the
Corresponding Societies were held at Southampton on the afternoons of
August 27th and Sept. 1st. I attended both meetings, but was not present
at the whole of either, owing to arrangements made before I had realised
the wide separation between some of the meeting places this year. As
Vice-President of the Geographical Section I had made arrangements in.
connection with it, under the expectation that the meeting room would
probably be only five minutes distant from the room where the conferences
were to be held; but Geography was at the New University buildings
three miles from the Conference of Delegates, and the special transport
arrangements were apparently not effective in the afternoon!
The chief feature of the Conference was the address by the President,
Sir A. D. Hall. He regards the British Isles as approaching exhaustion
as a field for research in botany and zoology, and as presenting a greatly
reduced scope in archaeology. He considers that very little remains in.
these subjects that can be done by the non-professional man. An ample
field of work, however, remains for the members of scientific societies
and field clubs in the collection of data for a detailed agricultural history
of the country, which would not only be of historic and economic impor-
tance, but would be of great service in giving rural education an agricul-
tural bias. He insists that schools should use their environment more
largely than they do, and he deplores their general neglect of the land.
Agricultural education is not only useful to those who actually work on
the land, but to many whose work is indirectly dependent on it, such as,
in country towns, assistants in shops, and clerks in the offices of banks,
lawyers and auctioneers. Rural education, he insists, must bring educa-
tion into relation to practical life, and the land is the best medium for
their connection. He would like to see every school provided with a set
of local maps, including a soil map, a vegetation map, and a crop map,
showing the distribution of the crops in any one year. This crop map
might be prepared at the school by the staff and pupils. The members of
Natural History Societies might co-operate by studying the agricultural
history of their district, including the history of settlement, parish by
parish, the history of each manor, and the development of enclosure.