235 
In two directions, however, it seemed that there was a great 
and pressing need for investigation and research, and the same 
remarks apply both to the Northern and to the Southern Terri- 
tories. In the first place, very little, if anything, is known about 
the bacterial flora of the soil and of the effect on the soil of the 
burning tropical sun and the long dry season. Further, the 
universal native practice is to burn down the grass and bushes 
covering the ground before any attempt is made to till the soil. 
What effect has this annual burning on the soil and its organisms ? 
Is it harmful or beneficial? It may be that noxious insects and 
fungi are killed in the process. But may there not at the same 
time be a loss of valuable chemical substances from the soil 
owing to the roasting of the ground by the fierce heat of these © 
bush fires ? 
hen, too, the peculiar native methods of cultivation, 
primitive as no doubt they are, may and probably have under- 
lying them some scientific principles of value, though they have 
been developed empirically by the natives as the result of long 
years of experience. . 
Such conditions and our lack of definite knowledge suggest 
the urgent need of appointing Agricultural Chemists, well verse 
in the science of soil biology, to discover what underlying 
principles there may be in native practices and also, if they are 
found to be of value, to develope them and gradually to improve 
the methods of cultivation suitable to the country. 
The need of Agricultural Chemists has been fully realised 
by His Excellency the Governor in his despatches and in his 
Address to the Nigerian Council (p. 182), and it is to be 
hoped that this much-needed line of enquiry will soon be 
undertaken. 
The other direction in which there is an extensive field for 
useful investigation is that embraced in the term Economic 
Botany in its widest sense. Very little, it appeared, is known 
of the plants used by the natives for food and for other purposes, 
reliance being placed by the European officials on products 
with which they are familiar at home. Thus many native plants, 
which would be of undoubted service to the white community 
as edible vegetables or for other purposes, are disregarded and 
opportunities of promoting the health both of the white and 
native population are sadiy neglected. Many of these native 
plants would doubtless be found susceptible to improvement 
by selection or hybridisation, and I am convinced that a far- 
reaching benefit would be conferred were Economic Botanists 
appointed in the Agricultural Department, whose prime duty it 
would be to investigate as fully as possible the native economic 
products and demonstrate their value for the good of the 
community. 
Up to the present the activities of the Agricultural Depart- 
ment have largely been centred in the introduction of exotic 
plants of economic importance to the neglect of the study of 
