PLANT INDUSTRY 4OI 



The improvement in crops and the standard of Uving of the holders 

 is said to serve as a better example to neighbouring farmers than 

 the usual demonstration plots attached to government agricul- 

 tural stations. 



In Uganda a special endeavour is made to give an agricultural 

 bias to the ordinary school curriculum by providing prospective 

 teachers with a two to three months' agricultural training before 

 they take charge of schools. This takes place at the agricultural 

 stations at Bukalasa and Serere. One month courses are provided 

 for selected groups of native chiefs in order to further propaganda 

 work, and the more promising members of the junior native staff 

 are also given a short training from time to time. Lastly, a small- 

 holder's two-year course is on trial at both stations. In this groups 

 of about six young men of the superior peasant type live and work 

 on model holdings of about twelve acres under conditions which 

 they can be expected to maintain for themselves when their train- 

 ing is finished. When the students return to their own land they 

 are assisted by the Native Administration to purchase cattle, 

 ploughs, doors, and windows, to enable them to set up for them- 

 selves as nearly as possible an exact copy of the holding they 

 helped to work. Arrangements are made for keeping in touch 

 with each student after he has left the station. Agricultural train- 

 ing for prospective school teachers is stressed also in West Africa; 

 in Nigeria the training schools at Toro in the Plateau Province, at 

 Ibadan, and elsewhere are important in this respect. In the Gold 

 Coast, Hunter Hostel, at Kumasi, is used for two months' training 

 for native farmers, after which they are expected to return to the 

 land and employ improved methods. 



For the production of native agriculturalists of the type designed 

 to form auxiliary staff in agricultural departments, several stages 

 are necessary. First comes the normal native education, and here 

 it is important to note the introduction of some biological teaching 

 in recent years. Concerning the higher education which follows, 

 results are anxiously awaited from the recent ventures in several 

 territories, in particular Achimota College in the Gold Coast, 

 Makerere in Uganda, and Yaba College near Lagos in Nigeria. 

 These centres are reasonably well provided with facilities for train- 

 ing in scientific subjects and the staff have begun to publish simple 



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