AN EDUCATIONAL EXPERIMENT. 175 



dug out quite close to the site. Little, if any, water is needed. 

 The house is strong and durable, cool in hot weather, warm in 

 cold. The door and window frames can be made of local timber, 

 as also the roof. This needs some instruction, which would be 

 given at the Government schools or by demonstrators. By its 

 longer life such a house would strike the first blow at the nomadic 

 tendency of the Native, and incline him to a more settled life. If 

 suitable stone is handy, it is a great improvement to put in a 

 foundation. Good pise work is practically impervious to ants, and 

 with good projecting eaves the walls will stand sound through the 

 heaviest rains. Where possible the inside should be washed with 

 lime. 



2. Agriculture. — In Rhodesia Natives are very apt to waste 

 large tracts of land, planting uneconomically, reaping sparse crops, 

 and impoverishing the soil. They lop off the branches of large 

 trees, heap them round the stems, and burn them to get the potash. 

 After two or three years they abandon the ground, and proceed 

 to a new spot, where they repeat the process, and so on till they 

 have exhausted the countryside. Though they have taken to 

 ploughs of late years, the result has not been altogether for good. 

 They rarely, if ever, stump the land, never cross plough, and 

 usually skim over a larger area than they can properly cultivate. 

 Here then is the second need for instruction. To enable the best 

 use to be made of the land for the greatest number better methods 

 of cultivation, manuring, and rotation must be introduced. 

 Besides giving the Native means of growing more and better food- 

 stuffs, it should be possible for him in time to produce crops which 

 will add to the products of the country, and to increase his own 

 purchasing power. So considerable a producer as the Native might 

 become cannot be omitted from the calculations of those who seek 

 to build up the position of the country in the markets of the 

 world. There are many crops which need that very hand labour 

 which a man and his family could furnish, and which multiplied 

 throughout the Reserves might make possible a crop which a 

 European farmer could not attempt. 



There is one important branch, concerned with boring for 

 water. The Native Department now has its own plant, with 

 Europeans working it, but with Natives being trained at the school 

 to take over the completed holes, and supervise the pumping. In 

 some of the large Reserves, where increased supplies of water are 

 needed, it is both difficult and expensive to carry out such work 

 by contract. As it is a work that will be going on for years, and 

 as each well needs attention, it will readily be understood what a 

 useful function the centrally placed school has to perform. 



3. Stock. — I have quoted figures which show that the native 

 is becoming a considerable stock-owner. He has found a good 

 market in selling to Europeans, many of whom have built up their 

 herds on native stock. But the type is often poor, inbred, good 

 neither for milking nor for beef. The country cannot afford to 

 have its grazing used up by unprofitable beasts. We have been 

 trying to introduce better bulls, and to emphasise quality as 



