164 AGRICULTURE IN THE TROPICS [PT. Ill 



come into local use. In Ceylon the school gardens have already 

 introduced a considerable number of new products into the 

 villages at a minimum of cost. The products thus introduced 

 are those likely to prove really suitable, and will not be thrown 

 away again or neglected, as so often happens when a plant is 

 distributed by Government officers, perhaps without any previous 

 tests as to its suitability. 



It would therefore seem that by the intermingling of village 

 and estate agriculture, whereby the villagers will have large 

 practical object lessons at their door, and by the institution of 

 school gardens on the lines indicated, the introduction of new 

 products will be sufficiently furthered, provided that the pro- 

 vision of cheap capital has been attended to. Without this the 

 only result will be to add a few more ill-kept plants to the 

 wilderness of the average village garden. Even this, however, 

 is something to have gained. 



The next point for improvement is the varieties of the 

 particular crops grown. Most of the native fruits, for example, 

 are capable of improvement, and the same is true of the 

 vegetables, and even of crops like rice or coconuts. This 

 subject is elsewhere dealt with from another point of view. 

 The question here is how to introduce the better kinds when 

 we have got them and when we have also and this is very 

 important assured ourselves that they still remain better 

 when grown in the villagers' gardens or fields by their local 

 methods. 



The majority of improved strains of field crops, such as rice 

 or cotton, have been obtained by continual selection of seed 

 from the best parents, and they can only be kept up to their 

 high standard by continual repetition of this process in every 

 generation. Treated as they are sure to be treated in village 

 agriculture, they will rapidly deteriorate, and in two or three 

 generations at most be as poor as any village crop, or as the 

 original strain from which they started. Non-recognition of 

 this fact is at the bottom of a great number of failures of 

 well-meant endeavours to improve the village crops in eastern 

 countries. " Good seed " is introduced at considerable expense 

 from Europe, but in a short time all trace of it has gone for 



