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the stunted, gnarled tap-roots that the trees. 
had grown on the most refractory laterite pan. He told me there 
was but 4 in. of soil above the laterite, and that the trees 
were on the top of a slope. At the bottom, near water, on ric 
_ soil there wasn’t a sapper to be seen. I sent word to the owner 
that if he really wanted to grow cocoa on such a place he’d have 
to dig big holes and deep, and fill them up with compost. He 
would know Himself, from his normal profit margin whether the 
expense would justify that method or whether it would be better 
0 recognise that laterite was no soil for cocoa. When next I 
heard of him he had read my report in a meeting of the 
Agricultural Society of Ibadan and denounced my remedy (and 
me) as impracticable. 
I noticed some time ago that 
Tt 1 had to map a course for a plant pathologist, I’d make a 
year's residence on a farm compulsory and make physiology, 
systematic and applied (the latter being essentially intensive 
