PRESIDENTIAL ADDRESS. SECTION C. 53 



E. — Native Foremen, etc. (twelve). 

 F. — Native Gardeners, labourers and attendants. 

 The total cost of the establishment in 1906 was 132.318 

 rupees. This includes three items which in South Africa 

 are already more or less adequately provided for under 

 the Agricultural Department and neither of which, under 

 South African conditions, would be more appropriately attached 

 directly to a Botanic Garden. These are: — 



(i) The Gangaruwct Experimental Farm, costing, Rupees 30,569 



(2) Chemist, „ .. Z.ooo 



(3) *Entomologist, ., (say) „ 7,ooo 



Total . . Rupees 44,569 



For purposes of comparison we may take the differ- 

 ence between the total annual expenditure and the cost of 

 these three departments— viz., Rs. 87,749, which, at 15 rupees 

 to the sovereign, amounts to £5,850. This sum is approxi- 

 mately i-274th of the year's revenue, after deducting the Rail- 

 way receipts. 



the Ceylon Gardens, it should be noted, are the modern 

 development of an institution which has been in existence for 

 more than a century. They have, therefore, long passed the 

 experimental stage. The planters of Ceylon are keen men of 

 business, and although many of them are sufficiently far-seeing 

 to recognise that the value of a scientific institution is not to be 

 judged by the criterion of a mere commercial enterprise, we 

 may be quite sure that, as a body, they are satisfied that this 

 annual expenditure is justified, they could hardly fail to be 

 convinced of this when, to a greater or less extent, they owe 

 Cinchona, Cacao, Coca, Camphor and Rubber, to say nothing 

 of minor crops, to the activities of the Botanical Department 

 which, through its Scientific Staff, has also done a great deal 

 towards the conservation of older established agricultural 

 industries. 



In comparing a State Department of Botany such as we 

 should desire to see established in South Africa, with that 

 which exists in Ceylon, certain characteristics in which the two 

 countries differ should be noted. In South Africa the climatic 

 conditions are far less favourable to agriculture. South Africa 

 is the permanent home of a large population which will in time 

 be dependent for its food supplies and, indeed, for its pro- 

 sperity, upon the products of its soil. The interests of those 

 engaged in agricultural and pastoral pursuits have hitherto 

 received but little assistance from the scientific study of the 

 plants upon which they depend. Little has yet been done in 

 South Africa to render available the products of indigenous or 

 exotic economic plants. A large part of the South African 

 revenue is derived from a diminishing capital. The cost of the 

 lower grades of labour is considerablv higher in South Africa 

 than in Ceylon. From a purely economic point of view there- 

 fore the need for an organisation whose business it is to 

 undertake the study of applied botany is greater in South 

 Africa than in Ceylon; its establishment and maintenance 

 will also be more costly. 



* No details as to cost available. 



