148 SCIENCE IN AFRICA 



In the Sudan two economic botanists are included in the staff 

 of the Gezira agricultural research service, and the director of 

 agricultural research formerly on the botanical staff, still supervises 

 the plant-breeding work, which is concerned mainly with cotton. 



In the various Colonies, Protectorates, and Mandated Territories it is 

 difficult to assess the number of workers engaged on botanical 

 subjects, because the title of 'botanist' is not always used in the 

 same sense in the different territories. However, the following 

 officers belonging to agricultural and veterinary departments are, 

 according to recent departmental reports, engaged for at least part 

 of their time on research: Northern Rhodesia^ — an ecologist and an 

 agricultural officer in charge of ecological survey; Nyasaland — 

 none; Tanganyika — one plant pathologist in the Agricultural 

 Department, one botanist in the Veterinary Department on pas- 

 ture research, and one in the Tsetse Department on botanical 

 survey; Kenya — two plant breeders, two plant pathologists, and 

 one agricultural officer investigating grasses^; Uganda — three 

 botanists and one mycologist; Nigeria — six botanists; Gold Coast — 

 one botanist; Sierra Leone — one plant pathologist. In addition to 

 these the East African Agricultural Research Station at Amani has 

 a systematic botanist, a plant breeder, a plant physiologist, and a 

 pathologist, and the Empire Cotton Growing Association main- 

 tains a research staff distributed in Nyasaland, Northern Rhodesia, 

 Southern Rhodesia, the Sudan, and the Union of South Africa, 

 some members of which are occupied in plant-breeding work. The 

 Departments of Forestry in each of the territories include officers 

 who spend much of their time on botanical work, some of which is 

 mentioned in this chapter. The majority of the botanical staff 

 mentioned above is of necessity occupied with the investigations 

 of immediate economic problems, such as the production of im- 

 proved strains of crop plants, the control of fungoid diseases or 

 improvement of pastures. Amongst botanists permanently engaged 

 in long-term research in tropical Africa are the ecologist in Northern 

 Rhodesia, the botanical survey officer of the Tanganyika Tsetse 

 Department and the systematic botanist, physiologist, and patholo- 

 gist at Amani. Botanical study in Africa has benefited much from 



* There is also a botanist at the Coryndon Memorial Museum at Nairobi, a govern- 

 ment-aided institution. 



