243 
Our duty, as it appears to me, is first to learn whatever there 
may be of value in native agricultural methods, and then, having 
estimated their worth, to endeavour to improve upon them with 
the aid of scientific research, so that they can be recommended 
for adoption in confident assurance that the native agriculturists 
will co-operate and apply them. 
It is apt to be forgotten that the native races have had 
insufficient time to adapt themselves to the new conditions 
introduced with the British administration, or to acquire the 
knowledge which it has taken the European centuries to assimilate. 
We forget possibly, in our endeavours to impart information, 
how elementary that instruction must be at the start in order 
that it may be properly grasped and appreciated. In matters 
agricultural, I feel convinced that for real progress to be ensured, 
not only must our instruction be given on lines adapted to meet 
the needs of a primitive community, but it must be begun with 
the children themselves. This can best be done by means of 
a carefully thought out system of elementary education, based 
very largely on the principles and practice of gardening and 
horticulture. . 
Before we can venture to assume the réle of teachers in matters 
agricultural, however, we have much to learn about the methods 
employed by the native cultivators themselves, and the more 
we may be able to unravel and elucidate the underlying scientific 
basis of their practices, so much the more shall we 
encourage them to adopt the improvements which ma 
discovered to be applicable to the peculiar conditions of the 
country. 
EXPLANATION OF PLATES. 
ff 
Fig. 1.—Ekona, Cameroons. A Cocoa plantation with Oil Palms; 
the Cameroon Mountain is seen in the distance. 5: 
Fig. 2.—Victoria Botanic Gardens, the Limbe river and Palms. 
~ Plate II. 
Fig. 3.—Buea, Cameroons. Tea bushes about 15 ft. high. 
Fig. 4.—Cinchona trees at Buea. 
Plate II. 
Fig. 5.—Granitic hills near Jos, Northern Nigeria, with bushes of a 
Cactoid Euphorbia. : : 
ig. 6.—Buin Yaro on the railway from Zaria to Jos. Natives making 
ass mats for thatching their circular mud houses. The tall tree is 
Parkia filicoides. eer 
Plate IV. : 
Fig. 7.—Granitic hills near Jos with a Pagan village among the rocks. 
A close stockade of columnar Euphorbias surrounds the compound. 
B2 
