50 



THE AGRICULTURAL NEWS. 



Februarv 17, 191-2. 



Proceeding, the President referred to the danger 

 that exists, on the part of local agricultural organiza- 

 tions, that they may be led to a desire to emphasize 

 their importance and independence in the direction of 

 bringing about their comparative isolation — a desire 

 that arises from the very circumstance that they have 

 been fostered successfully in the past. While admitting 

 the usefulness of such a tendency, in some directions, 

 Dr. Watts laid stress upon the necessity for the 

 existence of some counteracting influence for the pur- 

 pose of preventing loss of efficiency and of ensuring 

 co-operation among agriculturists in dift'erent colonies. 



The subjects of the address then dealt with the 

 latest phase in the relationships between agricultural 

 departments and those whom it is their function to 

 advise. This is the growth of large agricultural con- 

 cerns, commercial in nature, in which expert knowledge 

 regarding special matters passes beyond the scope 

 of agricultural departments. In regard to those 

 matters, such corporations will provide for them- 

 selves, while the agricultural departments will tind 

 their chief work in the direction of making investiga- 

 tions for the control of pests and diseases and in show- 

 ing how the results of research may be applied in agri- 

 cultural practice. 



In dealing with these and other similar matters, 

 Dr. Watts drew special attention to the circumstance 

 of the continued growth of the interests served by agri- 

 cultural departments and to the concomitant necessity 

 for change and adaptation to new conditions. He laid 

 stress, further, on the responsibility that attaches to 

 the Executive, where the Government is largely con- 

 cerned with the administration of such affairs, in the 

 proper direction of the changes that have to be made^ 

 pointing out that : ' the immediate assistance and 

 encouragement of agricultiaral affairs in their widest 

 sense have become prominent features in the Govern- 

 ment administration of the colonies;' and that : 'We 

 have now reached the period when the study of agri- 

 cultural needs and difficulties, and the encouragement 

 of efforts to open new lines of development, must be 

 regarded as constituting an object of care on the part 

 of Colonial Governments that is as legitimate for their 

 attention as the concerns of education, health and pub- 

 lic order.' 



After a vote of thanks to His Excellency for open- 

 ing the Conference, and to Dr. Watts for his address, 

 had been proposed and seconded by His Honour 

 E. J. Cameron, Administrator of St. Lucia, and Pro- 

 fessor Carmody, Director of Agriculture, Trinidad and 



Tobago, and after His Excellency had made suitable 

 acknowledgeanent. Dr. Watts took charge of the pro- 

 ceedings of the Conference, and called upon Professor 

 Carmody to read a paper on Agricultural Progress in 

 Trinidad and Tobago. In this, it was explained first of 

 all that the Trinidad Department of Agriculture was 

 constituted in November 1908, and in it are included : 

 (1) the Government Laboratory: (2) the St. Clair 

 Experiment Station, and the Botanic Gardens in Trini- 

 dad and Tobago ; (3) the Stock Farms in Trinidad and 

 Tobago; (-ilthe experiments at St. Augustine Estate; 

 (5) the experiments at the River Estate. The other 

 agricultural authorities in the island are the Board of 

 Agriculture, the Agricultural Society and the Perma- 

 nent Exhibition Committee, and the four institutions 

 control together a yearly expenditure of over £18,000. 



The space that is at disposal does not admit of the 

 presentation of an abstract dealing with every part of 

 Professor Carmody 's interesting paper. It must sufHce 

 to say that it included an account of agricultural pro- 

 gress in Trinidad, the jiresont state of the chief agri- 

 cultural industries, the schemes of experimentation 

 followed by the Department, and the means of diffusion 

 of information, by publications or otherwise; it served 

 to show how closely the agricultural interests of the 

 colony are served by the Department. At the conclusion 

 of the paper, and after the making of several necessary 

 Presidential announcements, the Conference stood 

 adjourned until the next moining. 



Further editorial attention will be given to the 

 recent Agricultural Conference, in the next issue of the 

 Agricultural Neics. 



Sakellaridis Cotton. — A new form of cotton has 

 recently been established in Egypt, which is known by the 

 name of tbe discoverer, M. Sakellaridis, who found the plant 

 about six years ago among a crop of Mitafifi on his estate at 

 BirketelSab in the Gharbia Province. It is stated that this 

 cotton matures earlier than Mitafifi, and that it flourishes in 

 those districts in which Mitafifi is usually grown but which 

 are unsuitable for Yannovitch. The new variety was grown 

 in 1910 on a fairly large scale in several places in the Gharbia 

 and Sharguira Provinces. 



A sample of Sakellaridis cotton has been forwarded to 

 the Imperial Institute by the Director-General of Agriculture 

 in Egypt, an(l has been examined with the following results. 

 The cotton was soft, silky, lustrous, cream-coloured with 

 a faintly reddish tinge, of good strength, and about 14 to 1"7 

 inches long. It was of excellent quality, being regarded by 

 experts as superior to the best Egyptian Yannovitch, and was 

 valued at 14id per B). (with 'fine' Yannovitch at ISJc?. 

 per Bb.). The fibre was finer and more silky than that of 

 Yannovitch, and was .slightly paler in colour. {Bulletin oj 

 tlif ImperialJnstitute,\o\. IX, p. 288.) 



