8. It will be the duty of the county committee to select centres at which the lectures and demonstrations will be given, and to appoint at each centre a local committee, with an honorary secretary, who should select the school and arrange for the hiring, lighting, and warming of the room in which the lectures will be delivered.
In selecting centres the county committee should have particular regard to districts in which lectures and demonstrations may not have been given in previous years.
It will also be the duty of the county committee to undertake the responsibility of seeing that the instructor’s time is fully and usefully employed.
The county committee shall keep a separate account of all expenditure under this scheme, and shall furnish detailed statements of such expenditure as may from time to time be required by the department.
9. Where it is considered desirable to arrange for lectures, the lectures should be given in schoolrooms or other suitable public rooms in the evenings, and should be held in rural centres. Towns and the larger villages should be avoided, as experience has shown that the greatest success attends those lectures which are given in the rural parts of a county. The local committee at each centre should be responsible for appointing a representative chairman for each lecture as well as for the distribution of the short syllabus of the lectures which will be prepared by the lecturer as soon as he is appointed. The local committee should undertake to have posters and handbills, which will be supplied by the secretary of the county committee, effectively displayed and distributed throughout their district. Copies of these posters and handbills should be forwarded to the department at least a week prior to the commencement of each course of lectures. Each lecture should be followed by a discussion, during which persons interested in horticulture and bee-keeping will be invited to ask questions. Where a course of lectures has already been given a new syllabus should be presented.
10. The county committee may purchase fruit, forest and other trees, shrubs, or plants, in bulk, and resell them at cost price, including carriage, to farmers, cottagers and other residents in the county. As, however, it has come to the knowledge of the department that trees and plants infested with disease have been imported into Ireland, it will be necessary for county committees who intend to put this clause into operation to invite from nurserymen tenders for the supply of trees, etc., to be guaranteed free from disease, and before acceptance to submit the tenders to the department for examination. The department may, if they think it advisable, inspect the trees, etc., that are offered for sale, and satisfy themselves that they are suitable and free from disease.
11. The horticultural demonstrations should commence early in autumn and be continued throughout the whole year.
12. In each circuit one demonstration plot may be provisionally selected for the purpose of growing fruit, vegetables, and flowers, and showing improved methods of cultivation, but no new plots shall be selected in a county if a sufficient number of suitable plots have been established in previous years.
Before sanctioning the establishment of a new plot the department will inspect the site with a view to determining the suitability of the land, etc.
(a) In counties in which a sufficient number of suitable plots already exist the committee shall make provision for the continuance of the plots at a cost not to exceed £1 5s. per plot. (See List A on p. 270.)