Vol. XII. Xo. 281. 



THE AGRICULTUIIAL NEWS, 



A UNIVERSITY IN THE TROPICS. 



The fdllowiiig article, dealing with the ostablish- 

 lucnt of a tiopical unixersity, appearod in a recctit issue 

 of Tlt( Times. It concerns the important position of 

 the Koyal CJardens, Kew, and the Imperial Department 

 of Agriculture, in the furtlier development of the 

 proposed scheme which has been already- described in 

 the Agriiidtural A'eus, in Vol. XII, pp 49, 59 and 72. 



The authorities of the lloyal Botanic Garden.^ at Kew 

 fcave ju.-t issued 'The Kew Bulletin of Miscellaneous 

 Information' for 1912. This volume i.s the latest of a s-ries 

 cf annual issues which extends back for over a quarter of 

 & century, and, like its predece-;sors, it ilhistrate.s very 

 icstructively the vai«t and varied services which the Royal 

 Gardens render to the Empire a.s the (entral intelligence 

 department of tropical agriculture and, so to speak, as the 

 l.otanical clearing hou.>e of the Kings Dominions. It is 

 j)erhap.- a too common iniprcsbion — fostered, it may be, by 

 the rare beauty and charm of the lioyal Gardens — that ICew 

 is concerned in the main rather with horticulture than with 

 agriculture, in it.s commercial and economic a.^pects. That is 

 a great mistake. Kew is concerned with both, of course; for 

 there is little that occurs in the botanical or horticultural 

 vorld fchat does not sooner or later find it-i record at Kew. 

 r.ut it i.- far more intimately concerned wiih the commercial 

 and economic interests of agriculture thronsihout the Empire, 

 and c?peoially in the tropics, than it is wiih purely horticid- 

 tural interests of any kind A glance at ihe table of contents 

 of any volume of the Bulletin will show this conclusively. In 

 the present volume we have, for in^tancej a well-nigh ex- 

 haustive study of the sources of alcohol throughout the 

 world; one of a serie.s of 'Xotes on Trees suitable for 

 Kxperimental Forestry'; monographs on tropical and exotic 

 plants of large and growing economic importance; a piper on 

 the culli\ation, demand for, and sujiply of the Fuller's Teasel; 

 and a very striking dissertation on the prospects of the 

 improvement of cotton by means of hybridization 



These are merely a few iHustrati'ins, taken almost at 

 random, of the scientific and practical work that is being 

 constantly done at Kew for the promotion of the economic 

 interests of agriculture throughout the Empire. They may 

 ■well serve to give point and significance to the plea which 

 vc advanced a short time ago 'fr.r the methodical develop- 

 ment of the resources of the vast and potentially wealthy 

 tropical regions' within th« widespread Dominions of the 

 Crown. In the further development of such an Imperial 

 University or Institute of 'J'ropical Agriculture as Mr. Norman 

 Lamont and others interested in the s-ubject have long 

 advocated, it is manifest th^t Kew must needs take a leading 

 part— a part to which it is abundantly entitled by the 

 services it has long rjndered, and is still continuously render- 

 ing, to the promotion of the objects in view. By reason of 

 its extra-tropical situation it is not perhaps well qualified to 

 be the seat of such an institute itself. 'A I'niversity of 

 Tropical Agriculture ought obviously,' as we have said, 'to 

 be situated where the students will live and work in tropical 

 condition.^'. But any such institution established in the 

 tropics must, for the reasons we hnve given above, needs 

 look to Kew as a central source of scientific inspiration, and 

 also as the chief source from which its practical instructors 

 are likely to be supplied. There are many botanical gardens 

 and institutes scattered throughout the troi>ical possessions 

 of the Crown. There is scarcely one of these which has not 

 been indebted to Kew for the directors or other superinten- 

 dents w ho have made them what they are. The staff of the 

 Ijoyal Gardens is in close and organic relation with them all. 



One of the most successful of them, and one which, by 

 reason of its manifold and far-reaching activities, conies- 

 nearest to the ideal of a Tropical University of Agriculture, 

 is the Imperial Department of Agriculture for the West 

 Indies, which was founded by Mr Chamberlain in 1898. 

 It was organized on large and comprehensive lines by Sir 

 Daniel Moriis, the first Imperial Cmmissioner in charge of 

 the Department; and since his retirement it has been carried 

 on in the same spirit by Dr. Francis Watts, the present 

 Commissioner. .Sir Daniel .Abirris is himself a product of 

 Kew, and was at one time .\ssistant Director there. His-- 

 knowledge, both scientific and practical, of tropical agricul- 

 ture is unrivalled, and as a representative of Kew, he has- 

 garnered it in all parts of the tropical regions of the Empire,, 

 trom Ceylon to British Honduras, from the Uahamas to 

 St. Helena. 



From this point of view special interest and significance 

 attach to a paper in the current issue of the Kew Bulletin 

 entitled 'A Visit to the West Indies.' Since the establishment 

 of the Imperial Department of Agriculture for the West 

 Indies it has been the custom of the C'ommissioner to summon' 

 periodical agricultural conferences, which have been held ift 

 diflferent islands of the Antilles. Last year the conference 

 was held in January at Trinidad, and a rc[ire.sentative of Kew 

 was invited to attend it. With the sanction of the President 

 of the Board of Agriculture the invitation was accepted, and 

 Mr. A. W. Hill, the Assistant Director of Kew, was deputed 

 to represent that department The paper in question is 

 ^fr. Hill's report of his observations and experiences, and it 

 bears very emphatic testimony to the scientific zeal and prac- 

 tical activity of the several branches of Ihe Imperial Depart- 

 ment which came under his observation. But wc would 

 especially direct attention to what he says of the relations of 

 Kew to the Imijcrial De|)artment and its otticers 'In most 

 of the islands the agricultural officers have been sent out 

 from Kew. ... In a few cases the officers have not been 

 trained at Kew, but my remarks apply e<iually to the good 

 work they also are doing ... 1 found them acting as buyers 

 and sellers of cotton for Government, as teachers in agricul- 

 tural schools, curators of gardens, devisers of experiments, 

 agricultural instructors, i^-c , besides which they are expected 

 to have an expert knowledge of botany, forestry, and many 

 other subjects. ... It was a matter of considerable satisfac- 

 tion to find that they were fulfilling their various occupations 

 with great credit to themselves and to the no small advantage 

 of their respective communities.' May we not discern in this 

 happy and fruitful association between Kew and such institu- 

 tions as the Imperial Department of Agriculture the promise 

 and the nucleus of what we desire in the Tropical University 

 of the future/ 



The British Cotton Growing: Association 

 and a Tropical University.— A letter appears in 7'/ie 



Times of February 11, from Mr. John W. McConnel, A'ice- 

 Chairman of the Fine Cotton Spinners' and Doublers' 

 Association. In this it is jjointed out how valuable the 

 establishment of a University of Tropical Agriculture would 

 be from the point of view of the development of the pro- 

 duction of British cotton. It may be remembered that 

 Mr. McConnel re[)resenled the British Cotton Growing Asso- 

 ciation at the last .Agricultural Conference at Trinidad. His 

 views on the subject may therefore be considered to carry 

 double weight in that he is acquainted with both the manu- 

 facture of cotton and the local conditions of its production. 



