Vol. XVI. No. 406. 



THE AGRICULTURAL NEWS. 



355 



the necessary objects to illustrate practical))' every 

 lesson in agricultural matters. 



In fact the only schools in the West Indies in which 

 agricultural education seems to have improved in the 

 last ten years are those where the examining, and 

 conseijuently the teaching, has been at least to some 

 considerable extent, directly out-door and practical. 

 St. Lucia may be mentioned as an honourable example. 

 There the agricultural education in elementary schools 

 seems to be bearing good fruit, because the officers of 

 the Agricultural Department visit and advise on the 

 school gardens from time to time, and conduct exam- 

 inations connected therewith. 



The following quotation from a paper by the 

 Imperial Commissioner in the West Indian Bulletin, 

 Vol. XIV, p. 172, puts what may be considered as fair to 

 expect to be taught of this subject to the average child 

 who is to become an agricultural labourer; — 



'They may well be taught elementary facts about 

 plant and animal life, about the manner in which seeds 

 germinate and plants grow, and the fundamental rela- 

 tionships of plants to ihe soil and air. They may also be 

 trained in certain simple operations, such as the sowing 

 of seeds, the propagation of plants by cuttings, and 

 perhaps such operations as budding and grafting, and 

 these exercises may — and it is very desirable that they 

 should — extend to simple operations conducted in 

 a school garden, where the pupils may learn somethmg 

 concerning the handling of soil, the arrangements 

 necessary for the cultivation of simple crops, probably 

 principally of culinary vegetables, and of the various 

 incidents requiring the attention of the cultivator in 

 order to bring these crops to maturity, such matters 

 as watering and the protection of the crop from insect 

 pests, all of which, if judiciously handled by the teacher, 

 afford rich stores of material of educational value, and 

 enable, even in simple minds, an appreciation to be 

 arrived at of the fundamental facts in the life of 

 a peasant. 



'More than this it does not seem necessary to look 

 for or expect: indeed if it is carefully looked at, it will 

 be seen that it really embraces a wide range, having 

 regard to the child mind, and what is more, it admits 

 of being carried into effect in practically every agricul- 

 tural district, and so demands no educational revolution 

 or upheaval.' 



Reference will be made in a future number of this 

 Journal to the work done in connexion with secondary 

 scbools, and with regard to the teaching of agricultural 

 sv.bjects from a technical point of view. 



THE GOVERNMENT EXPERIMENTAL 



ESTATE IN TRINIDAD. 



The Government of Trinidad own and work a.s ao 

 Experiment Station, under the control of the Agricultural 

 Department, the Eiver estate, in the Diego Martin district. 

 On the occasion of a visit to the estate by the Singre Grande 

 District Agricultural Society, Mr. W. G. Freeman, the A ting 

 Director of Agriculture, gave a resume of the history and 

 present position of this Government property. The Port of - 

 ^pain (riuette for October 27, 1917, gives a report of 

 Mr. Freeman's speech, from which are gathered the following 

 interesting details. 



Mr. Freeman said that the Government had bought the 

 property in 1S97 for £4,629, and had since spent large sums 

 on improvements, which made up a total cipital expenditure 

 of £11, 274. The present position of the estate was that it 

 had paid back to the Government the whole p mount spent 

 on its purchase, and it had a small balance' in the bank. 

 There were about 120,000 bearing cacao trees, and 10,000 

 were in the hands of contractors, and with timber, limes and 

 other things, there were about 400 acres under cultivation. 

 The estate could easily be valued at £2-5,000. The timber con- 

 tracts were fairly well taken up, there being thirty-eight con- 

 tractors. There were some 5,000 coffee trees also planted on 

 the estate. In referring to the labour question, Mr. Freeman 

 remarked that the Paver estate had its labour difficulties as 

 the other estates, but it was helped to a certain extent by the 

 woik of the boys of the Reformatory, which, he was glad to 

 say, was generally .■■peaking, good. The boys did cutlassing 

 and brushing. Owing to the increase in the cost of living, 

 deserving labourers had had their wages increased. But the 

 great thing was a want of a regular labour supply. Following 

 the practice obtaining at Caroni and Palmiste, River estate 

 now gave a bonus of one day's pay at the end of every fort- 

 night to every labourer who worked for ten days in that 

 fortnight. Much success had been achieved. In many ways, 

 the estate spent much money in ways not called for on private 

 estates. 



Two branches of the experimental work of which 

 Mr. Freeman spoke seem of special importance, viz, the 

 .selection of cacao beans for planting, and the series of 

 manurial experiments. He said that as regards the first, 

 planters had recognized that all cacao trees did not bear 

 alike, but there was very little definite information on tlie 

 subject. Professor Carmody started a big scheme of number- 

 ing selected trees to get returns year by year of what each 

 bore. At present, there were 10,000 trees thus labelled. 

 Yields were recorded for 9ome five years now, and by com- 

 parison they could tell that a tree was a heavy bearer if it 

 always bore heavily. Seeds from such heavy-bearing trees 

 were used for propagation purp3ses: and pods from these 

 selected trees were also sold to planters. Seedlings might 

 not always turn out like their parents, because there was ihe 

 possibility of crossing. But by means of grafting or budding 

 one could make sure that one had a really heavy bearer. 

 Many people doubted the value of such records, on the 

 ground that heavy bearing might be due to nccid-ntal differ- 

 ences in soils. But in California, U.S.A., similar experiments 

 were conducted with grape fruit, with similar results. 



With regard to manurial experiments, the estate also 

 had a large series of manurial oxperiraents, and from general 

 results at pce.=ent it was gathered that bigger yields were got 

 from manured than from control plots. But on the cjuestion 

 of manures, the ordinary planter had also to considT the 

 financial side. The estate was run as a commercial concern, 

 and its great value was what they could learn from it. 



