258 



THE AGRICULTURAL NEWS. 



August 23, 1919. 



in the public services, and have been asked to retire 

 to their laborati >ries and keep quiet. 



All agricultural officers in the colonial service 

 are not scientific. Those who are not will be the 

 first to acknowledge it. But they have a sound 

 knowledge concerning the growth of plants, and, what 

 is more important, the senior ones understand the 

 -agricultural economics of the colonies in which they 

 work. Many of them are able business men. Where 

 the business mind is combined with experience, scienti- 

 fic training, and a broad outlook, we get the highest 

 type of agi-jcultural officer. There are man}' such men 

 in the colonies to-day, and, luckily, their number is 

 increasing. These men are perfectly well qualified to 

 have a voice, and a strong voice in matters of 

 agricultural policy. They are not merely e.xperi- 

 menters and advisers, but — so far as they are allowed to 

 be — le&ders and constructionists. It always seems an 

 anomaly that a lawyer, or a clerk, or a schoolmaster, 

 or a soldier can become a Colonial Governor, whereas 

 a university graduate in natural science, with a sound 

 knowledge of agriculture and economics, and often a 

 good business mind into the bargain, cannot. 



The status of the senior agricultural officer might 

 be improved if he were appointed a member of 

 his colonial legislative council. In some colonies, 

 presidencies, and protectorates this has been done, but 

 only in a few. As far as information is available, the 

 only colonies where this has occurred are Fiji, 

 Jamaica, British Guiana, Leeward Islands, Dominica> 

 Virgin Islands, and Mauritius. It is somewhat 

 curious that the officers of nearly all the colonies 

 referred to are or were connected with the Imper- 

 ial Department of Agriculture for the West Indies. 

 Other reasons must be looked foi-, however, to 

 explain the higher status of these agricultural officers. 

 Length of service, outstanding ability, or absence of 

 competition for the appointment may individually or 

 collectively have carried weight. Those possessions, 

 where the senior agricultural officer has no political 

 status, constitute a long list. Amongst the most 

 important are : the Gold Coast, Sierra Leone, Nigeria, 

 Nyasaland, East African Protectorate, Straits 

 Settlements, Ceylon, British Honduras, Zanzibar, Trini- 

 dad, Barbados, Grenaila, and many of the other 

 West Indian islands. It will be noticed that this 

 list includes the principal cacao-producing colonies 

 namely, Gold Coast, Ceylon, Trinidad, and (Jrenada. 

 Owing to the lack of uniformity and co-operation in 

 cacao production it is especially important to strength- 

 en as much as possible the position of the agricul- 

 tural departments concerned. 



In conclusion we would urge upon the general 

 public and the Colonial Governments to realize that 

 the function of senior agricultural officers has changed 

 frora what it used to be. They are no longer cur.itors 

 of gardens, but officials interested in the general 

 progress of the colonies. Perusal of their Annual 

 Reports will prove this. Their status ought to be 

 bettered and raised to the same level as that of 

 principal medical officers and colonial engineers. They 

 ought to have a strung voice in all <]uestions of 

 agricultural policy. Fntil this is done there will 

 always be a tendency to keep able men out of the 

 service, and a tendency to kill the ambition of those 

 who are in it. 



SILOS AND ENSILAGE. 



The recent drought, experienced by many of the 

 West Indian islands, was one of the worst that has 

 occurred for many years. It has caused a most serious 

 set-back to staple crops in some places, but the 

 most critical trouble was the shortage of food it caused 

 for live stock. Silos and ensilage is a remedy against 

 such a recurrence, and in this connexion the follow- 

 ing information taken principally from the Report of 

 the Antigua Agricultural Department, 1917-l.S, will 

 be read with avidity. 



Quite recently a silo has been erected in Antigua, and 

 it is possible that at least two others will also be built 

 "in the near future. The one that has been erected is 31 i 

 feet high, and has a diameter of 16 feet. It is built of 

 reinforced concrete. The method adupted when building 

 this was to erect the iron frame work, and to plaster the 

 sides until they were of the required thickness ; they are 

 about 5 inches thick. 



In conseq'Jience of the above, a few remarks on ensilage 

 making may not be out of place at this juncture, in such 

 a publication as this. Until quite recently ensilage making 

 received little attention in the West Indies or in I'ngland, 

 but in the United States and some other places the making 

 of this form of fodder has been popular for a considerable 

 time. A silo is an airtight tank or chamber, and its function 

 is to preserve green, succulent, cattle food. In the United 

 States maize is extensively used for this purpose, and, as 

 pointed out by various authorities, a considerable amount of 

 the feeding value is in the stalks. .\s this portion of the 

 corn plant is in Antigua seldom fed to stock, it will be seeo 

 that considerable saving of feed would take place if silos 

 were extensively used locally. It might be .said that if corn 

 were to be grown for ensilage, it would probably be 

 advisable to plant it much more thickly than is 

 practised now. In South Africa, the time when it is 

 considered advisable to reap maize for silo purposes is when 

 the grain has begun to glaze, .it the time when the lower 

 leaves are turning yellow, and the upper ones are still green. 

 The stalks and cobs are then conveyed to the silo, where 

 they are cut by a combined silage cutter and blower, which 

 chaffs the whole of the material, and blows the chaff uji a 

 pipe, which enters the silo at the top. Pea vines are ex- 

 tensively used for ensilage, and these with the local grasses'^ 

 cane tops, etc., should form abundant material which 

 planters could transform into ensilage for use during pro- 



