/an. I, m-'/.i 



THE THOi^tCAL AOHtCOLfUmif. 



433 



CEYLON AGEICULTUEAL SCHOOL. 

 Annual Kepokt : Nov. 1880. 



The Colombo School of Agriculture was opened is January 

 1881, and hitherto there has befii no public prize day, 

 the Director desiring that the school should be established 

 on a tirm basis before any public attention was drawn 

 to it. 



Now, however, that the training of the first batch of 

 students has been completed, and very satisfactorily com- 

 pleted, the prohibition of publicity has been removed, and 

 on behalf of the students I welcome your Excellency very 

 heartily to this our first prize day, and we thank you, 

 sir, for tlie great honor you have doii^ us in coming here 

 today. 



A short history cf the school may not be out of place. 

 It was first proposed by the present Director in 1883, and 

 it was very generally predicted that it would be a failure. 

 It was said that Students who were cadets of the better 

 families of Ceylon would be above working with their own 

 hands at ploughing ana other farm operations, while, if 

 stiuleuts of the lower class were adu itted, no practical 

 good would aiteud the opening of the school. Nevertheless. 

 out of some SU applicants for admission 28 students were 

 selected and admitted in January 1881, only 3 of whom re- 

 presented lesslhan 100 acres of land, ^Nhile many representei^ 

 very large acreages. 



Tlie design of the school was to train these students for 

 cultivating their lands aud the lauds of their friends by - 

 the light of more modern Agricultural knowledge, and . 

 by the use of improved implements of tillage, care beinf , 

 taken in no way to do away with existing native customs ) 

 hut to bring out what was best in tliem, and to supplemen' 

 them where necessary with more modern knowledge. 



The few poorer students were to be traiueri for future use as 

 school-masters. 



There was at one time an intention to attach this school 

 to Mr. De Soysa's Model Farm, but the Director considered 

 Model Farms expensive aud cumbersome, and arrangements 

 were made ii stead to follow the German system, and to 

 send the students out for their practical work to the lands 

 of private land owners. Aud here I desire to publicly express 

 our gratitude to Mr. Abeyratne for permitting us to work upon 

 his property. 



I am glad also to state that every one of the students 

 now in the school has performed his 'full share of manual 

 labour shrinking from nothiug, but working pluckily aud 

 heartily at the most wearisome details, thus improving their 

 physique and health, and gaining practical knowledge of 

 all operations, from tending buffaloes up to ploughing with 

 their own hands. 



The first year's work was theoretical only and was 

 devoted to tlie ordinary subjects of a High school educ- 

 ation, but sub^titutiug agriculture, chemistry and botany 

 for Latin and Greek. 



The second aud third year's work has been both 

 practical and theoretical with book work on the liues above 

 mentioned. 



Mr. Charles de Soysa has with his usual geuerosity given 

 a prize for the best students in Agricultural Cliemistry and 

 analysis of soils, for which we thank him heartily. 



With regard to the book-work of the school, it has been 

 mainly in charge of Messrs. Charles de Silva and H. D. 

 Lewis, whose services I desire to acknowledge, while the field 

 work and actual Agricultural Teaching has been in charge of 

 Mr. Jayawardene who was trained at Saidapet and who 

 has turned his training to good account. 



Our work on Mr. Abeyaratne's land has been heavily handi- 

 capped by two bad floods, but, nevertheless, wo succeeded in 

 obtaining a proportion of rather more than 12 bushels of 

 paddy for every 9 bushels obtained by the native method, 

 although the ii itive land in competition with ours was the 

 more heavily manured. 



Experiments have also been made with various gardens, or 

 dry-land products with a view to checking the wasteful cultiv- 

 ation of such soil-exhausting crops as amu, &c. in chenas. We 

 have fouiiii for instance that dhoU, which is seldom grown by 

 t.he Sinhali-.-e, will grow with little trouble in any soil, and 

 it is a most agreeable and nutritious food. It is hoped that 

 the students who leave us tomorrow will spread the know- 

 ledge of this valuable food amongst their own people in their 

 own villages. 



But I must not Aveary you, sir, with details, I will now 

 only state that according to the proposal sanctioned by your 

 Excellency, six of the students who are leaving us now will 

 assume appointments i ext January as Village Agricultural 

 Instructors at Mullaitivu,at Toppur, and at Kanankudah in 

 the Tamil districts, aud at Minuangodde, at Panapitiya, 

 and at Bandarigama in the Sinhalese districts. Too much 

 importance cannot be laid u, on the success or failure of these 

 young men. The natives of this country are very generally 

 opposed to wliat they deem new-fangled ideas, aud it will 

 require much tact to guide them aright- 



For instance they say that our ploughs are too heavy for 

 their buffaloes ; it will be f r these village instructors to show 

 them that they are not too heavy if the buffaloes are trained 

 to their use. A horse reiiuires breaking to haruess, and a 



Ibuffalo reqvures siBiilarly traiaiBg fvs Wj?s6 iiei'Slis. 



And above all it will be their duty to train np theboyS 

 of the villages to which they are sent, boys whose 

 minds are not yet rooted into prejudice, to a kuowled^e 

 which the grown up men m;iy be too proud to acquire." 



la this their arduous duty they wul be cheered by 

 your Excellency's presence here today, aud I am confi- 

 dent that each one will do, if possible, more than hig 

 best, feeling that your eye, sir, is upon him, aud that 

 your best wishes attend his work. 



H. E. GovEr.NOR Sik A. Gordon said : You have 

 been good enough, Mr. Green, to ask me to come here 

 today to distribute the prizes to the boys of this 

 school, and I have had great pleasure in accepting 

 your invitation, though I should have had that same 

 pleasure under any circumstances, because it is always 

 an interesting thing to see boys assembled together, 

 and yet more interesting to think, that those to whom 

 the prizes are given, are about to go out into the 

 world, and in their Oivn persons experience the value of 

 the lessans which they have learned : that is the case 

 in any school and at any prize-giving ; but the interest 

 is today deeper and more peculiar, because it is not 

 only the boys who are about to leave the Institution, 

 but, it may be said in one sense, that it is the Institu- 

 tion itself which is now, for the first time, going out 

 into the world. (Applause.) Hitherto its work has b3eu 

 confined to that of training ; now it remains to be s sen 

 what the value of that training has been, and what its 

 results will be on;those who leave it and go out to apply 

 elsewhere the principles which tliey have learned 

 here. Those who so go forth from you today bear 

 with them not only my good wishes, but the good 

 wishes, I am sure, of all the company which 

 is assembled here today. But, as is usually the 

 case, it depends more upon yourselves than on any 

 one else whether those wishes will be realized or 

 not. We may wish you success, but the making or 

 marring of that success is in your own hands. 

 Some of you on leaving this place, go to try novel 

 experiments and have received novel appoint- 

 ments. Now, it depends very much — I do not know 

 that we should be very far wrong if we were to say 

 it depends altogether — on the manner in which these 

 first few students who are leaving this place dis- 

 charge their individual duties whether this Institution 

 bec&mes a failure, or whether it proves a benetit— 

 and lasting benefit — to the country. But al- 

 though those who go to take up these posts are the 

 most conspicuous, and their failure or success will 

 be most marked, do not think that I undervalue the 

 importance of the action of those returning without 

 such appointments to their own homes, and their own 

 districts (Applause.) In some respects, their work 

 is even more important than that of the paid 

 teachers recognized by Government (Applause.), bo- 

 cause the influence they exercise will not be the 

 official influence, but simply the influence that their 

 own good sense and their own tact may gain for 

 them. Now, some of those who are educated here, 

 when they go back to their own districts, and live 

 among their own people, and are surrounded by their 

 old associations and superstitions will no doubt 

 forget a great deal they have been taught here and 

 will take up again the old habits and associations 

 which surround them : that is quite inevitable. It 

 is not a thing that can be avoided in case 

 any number of people are going back to their 

 old associations. I mean that you will And that new 

 methods of ploughing, new systems of agriculture 

 are troublesome ; that they are unpopular amongst 

 those whom you live, and they will gradually be 

 dropped out of sight and forgotten. That will bo 

 the case- with some, and it will bo a pity,. although 

 it ia inevitable, but there are others with whom, 

 that will not be the Qase, and I am not sure that 

 some of these others may not do more to prevent 

 the success of our scheme here than those whom 

 1 have just mentioaed— I mean those who go bacl^ 



