238 
Hausa cultivators, and terracing of the garden ground, it should 
be possible to irrigate by gravitation considerable tracts of suitable 
land along the banks of streams and rivers. 
It would seem that if this native system of cultivation could 
be encouraged a large supply of useful vegetables could be raised 
by market-gardening natives which would be of great benefit 
to the country. 
The Agricultural Department could also assist the market 
gardening enterprise by assisting with the selection of suitable 
seeds, and with regard to onions especially, they might help greatly 
by selecting a strain of non-bolting Nigerian varieties. It was 
noticed in one native garden that quite 50 per cent. of the onions 
own from native seed were running to seed without forming 
bulbs, and this state of affairs could easily be remedied by scientific 
assistance. 
It is realised, however, that valuable work of this kind will 
not be possible until the Agricultural Department has its full 
complement of scientific officers. 
The problems to be faced in the cultivation of vegetables 
and flowers under the arid conditions of N. Nigeria have been 
very successfully surmounted at Sokoto, where the influence 
of the neighbouring desert is far more potent than at Zaria or 
Kaduna. 
Dr. Bernard Moiser, Senior medical officer, Sokoto, has 
achieved a remarkable success under very adverse conditions 
with his garden at Sokoto, and to my great regret time did not 
permit of my paying it a visit. 
The garden has been well described in the current number 
of the Journal of the Royal Horticultural Society,* and both the 
successes and failures are recorded, thus making the account of 
permanent value. Dr. Moiser has, in effect, established a small 
Botanic Garden of considerable educational value, which is a 
veritable oasis in the midst of dry and cheerless surroundings, 
and it is to be hoped that the Government of Nigeria will be able 
to arrange for its permament maintenance should the Founder 
be transferred to some other sphere of activity. 
Horticultural enterprise in —— owes a further debt to 
Dr.Moiser for his pamphlet on G n the Northern Provinces, 
published by the Kaduna Horticultural aint, which has been 
of great value to the members of that enterprising and useful 
body, and has evidently stimulated a:keen interest in gardening 
in Kaduna and the neighbourhood 
' It was unfortunate that the time of my visit to Nigeria 
coincided with the close of the dry season so that it was not possible 
to see any agricultural operations in active progress. 
The fields in the Northern region were all bare and dry and 
the soil had been hoed into long broad furrows. The cultivation 
eae Eee Work in Nigeria: The Sokoto Gardens,” by Mrs. R- 
Lam: Yates; Journal of the ore! Horticultural Society, Vol. XLVI, 
May, 1921, pp- 336-345, with Plates 
