PRESIDENTS ADDRESS. II 



the fact that we meet here to-day in Bulawayo. the geographical 

 centre of South Africa, the most tangible proof for the advance- 

 ment of Science- irr South Africa? Forty years ago this coun- 

 try was under the sway of a barbarian ruler, and now, this year, 

 your town is the place of meeting of the South African Associa- 

 tion for the Advancement of Science. You have schools, a 

 museum, an observatory of no mean order, your Rhodesia 

 .Scientific Association, chemical laboratories — in short, everything 

 that indicates that Science has found a home in the centre of 

 this southern part of the Dark Continent. I have always read 

 with the greatest interest the records of the Rhodesia Scientific 

 Association, and of the Rhodcsian Agricultural Journal pub- 

 lished by your able Director of Agriculture, Dr. Eric Nobbs. The 

 value of the scientific work done by your Agricultural Department 

 cannot be overrated, and should receive every encouragement 

 and support at the, hands of the Government. Also in Rhodesia, 

 notwithstanding its mineral wealth, agriculture in all its 

 branches, which can be carried on under the climatic conditions 

 of the country, will ever be the principal industry of this part of 

 .South Africa. The Agricultural Department of Rhodesia, as 

 well as the Agricultural Departments in the several Provinces 

 of the Union, should be in a position to advise the new settlers 

 as to the most suitable crops to grow and the proper mode of 

 cultivating these crops. In order to do this the Agricultural 

 Departments in all the countries of South Africa should have 

 iinder their control a large number of agricultural experimental 

 stations, at which systematically arranged experiments should 

 be carried out. the results of which would immensely help the 

 new settler and spare him much disappointment and loss of 

 money and time in his endeavours to obtain a footing and living 

 in the new country. My colleague, Dr. Pearson, Professor of 

 Botany in the South African College, delivered an extremely 

 able address at last year's meeting of the Association in Cape 

 Town on the subject of estalilishing National Botanic Gardens 

 in the various climatically different parts of South Africa, in 

 which such work is carried on as in an Acclimatization Garden. 

 T much regret that up to the present, so far as I know, no action 

 has been t^ken to carry out this suggestion. The colonies of 

 Germany are but small as compared with those of the British 

 Empire, but the amount of energy and money which is devoted 

 by the Colonial Department in Berlin to the experimental agri- 

 cultural work done in Togo, the Cameroons. East Africa and 

 Samoa, with a view to testing the suitability of these countries — 

 soil and climate — ras to the production of crops such as Cotton, 

 Hemp. Cofifee. Tea, Tobacco and other tropical and subtropical 

 plants is vastly greater than what we do in our newly acquired 

 tropical and subtropical countries. T beg to refer you on this 

 occasion to Dr. Pearson's address on National Botanic Gardens, 

 to which he has added a paper on " A State Botanic Garden," 

 which appeared in ,the periodical The State of May this year. 



