Vol. XVI. No. 399. 



THE AGRICULTURAL NEWS. 



249 



tion on the food question by showing in bulk 

 the actual quantities of flour, rice, vegetables, etc.. 

 imported annually for each adult of the population, 

 and by the exhibit in the grounds, of ground provisions 

 which can be grown in one year on a small area; 

 the yams, potatoes, etc. were exhibited on the soil as 

 dug. The uses to which some of the provisions can be 

 put were demonstrated by meals, etc.. from the Tobago 

 Botanic Station. A comprehensive rubber exhibit, 

 inc ading rubbers produced locally and manufactured 

 art.jles, budded cacao and other nursery stock was 

 als shown. On the stock side, the Department showed 

 vai : >us stud and other animals, including the jack 

 doi.key recently imported. 



Chiggers or Chiggoes. 



In the Review of Applied Entomology, Vol. V, 

 Series B, p; 63, it is stated that the domestic pigs in 

 Costa Rica are infested by chiggers (Dermatophilis, 

 penetrans, L. ). When these are driven through the 

 streets, they infest the soil in them, the chief victims 

 being the bare-footed children who play there. The 

 sores are stated to afford an entrance for the tetanus 

 bacillus, and during the past four years 1,147 deaths 

 from tetanus are said to have occurred in the lepublic 

 Gas gangrene is also transmitted occasionally, and the 

 deaths of two Europeans are definitely stated to l)e due 

 to this. Where the chiggers are too numerous to be 

 removed with a needle, as is generally done in the 

 West Indies, the following ointment is advised: 

 Salicylic acid, 25 grams: icthyol, 10 granis: yellow 

 vaseline, 10 grams. Local baths of petroleum are also 

 useful, but tincture of iodine is not recommended. 

 The best prophylactic measure would be to prevent 

 infested pigs being brought through the streets, together 

 with regulations for treating the animals in the pig- 

 geries. 



In the West Indies where the children of many of 

 the well-to-do classes are allowed to run about bare- 

 footed, it is well to remember the dangers not only 

 from chiggers but also of infection by hook worms. 



The Higher Direction of Industry. 



Organization, direction, co-ordination and knowl- 

 edge are as essential to modern industry as they are 

 to a modern army. The industrial army is always at 

 war with nature. To maintain its place in the van 

 with the industrial armies of other progressive nations, 

 it will depend not only on the natural qualities of its 

 own rank and file but also on its staff work, on its 

 equipment being maintained at the highest possible 

 pitch, on new developments bein^ carried through, new 

 ideas and inventions sought and welcomed, on the collec- 

 tion of detailed and world-wide information of trade and 

 industry, and on the co-ordination of all the directing 

 forces of the nation, political, industrial, scientific and 

 financial, both to secure the utmost internal develop- 

 ment and to conduct the strategic penetration of foreign 

 markets. In a word, it will depend on the brains, 

 adaptability and hard work of those who direct industry. 

 {Round Table.) 



Juvenile Education and Employment. 



Any inquiry into education at the present juncture 

 is big with issues of Imperial face. In the great work 

 of reconstruction which lies ahead there are aims which 

 will try no less searchingly than war itself the enduring 

 qualities of those on whose shoulders a share in the 

 common burden of Empire rests. One of the chief prob- 

 lems will be to restore the natural relations between 

 the folk and the food from which the folk derives its 

 sustenance, to verify with fresh scientific methods 

 and better economic conditions the worn-out practices 

 of agriculture, and to learn over again that there is no 

 greater benefactor than the man who makes two ears 

 of corn grow where but one grew before. And 

 to realize this, education with its stimulus and its 

 discipline must be our stand-by. 



In discussing the age at which boys should leave 

 school, the final report of the Departmental Committee 

 on Juvenile Education in relation to employment after 

 the war states that, although it will prove easier to 

 raise the standard of education in the towns than in 

 the villages, it would be a fatal mistake to acept a 

 lower standard as the one proper to be aimed at. not 

 only for the sake of the large number of children who, 

 although born and educated in villages, will certainly 

 not spend their whole lives in those villages, but also 

 for the sake of agriculture and of the agricultural popu- 

 lation themselves. Agriculture is essentially from top 

 to bottom a skilled industry, and if there is to be an 

 agricultural revival, one of the most potent means for 

 bringing it about must be an improved education, 

 resulting both in a higher degree of planting ability 

 and in a higher conception of the possibilities of village 

 life. 



University Degree in Horticulture. 



The University of London has established a B.Sc. 

 degree in Horticulture. Syllabuses for internal and 

 external students have been drafted and the University 

 has under consideration the recognition of the Royal 

 Horticultural Society's school and research station at 

 Wisley as a school of the Universitj-. If degrees are 

 to be given in technical subjects, the case for horti- 

 culture is a good one, for, although horticulture is 

 primarily a craft, and like all crafts depends for its 

 successful pursuit on the exercise of practical skill, it is 

 also an applied science. 



From the point of view that tropical horti- 

 culture is in many cases akin more to horti- 

 culture than to agriculture practised in Great 

 Britain, this degree is to be welcomed. Unfortunately, 

 the regulations for the external degree provide for no 

 training in practical horticulture. This defect might 

 be met by the recognition of training, at Kew or at 

 some of the establishments of the great commercial 

 horticulturists, of those who, for various reasons, are 

 unable to become internal students. 



