172 AGRICULTURE IN THE TROPICS [PT. Ill 



great point to remember is, as already pointed out, to let the 

 improvement of the stock keep pace with that of the food. 



To sum up, then, it would appear that the first requisite 

 is to avoid hasty action, and to make a careful study of that 

 which we want to improve, of tools, crops, methods, etc., and to 

 find out all that the villager already knows from accumulated 

 experience. All this knowledge should then be treated com- 

 paratively in the usual scientific manner ; comparisons should 

 be made with other countries, other crops, other methods, etc., 

 and sound general principles of improvement thus deduced, 

 the experience and agricultural history of the most advanced 

 countries being used as a guide to suggest directions of work 

 and improvement. New products, new varieties, improved 

 varieties, new methods, better tools, and the rest, should be 

 very fully and carefully tested before trying to introduce them 

 into peasant agriculture, remembering that poverty, prejudice, 

 custom, ignorance, and indolence are all formidable obstacles in 

 the path, which must be removed or avoided. Or, to make more 

 concrete suggestions, there should be Experimental Gardens to 

 try experiments with the native crops and tools, and parallel 

 experiments with introduced varieties, improved races, better 

 tools, better methods, and so on. Seed of kinds decided upon as 

 safe to recommend should be distributed among the peasantry 

 from the gardens. Estate and village agriculture should be 

 intermingled, to provide object lessons to the latter in good 

 methods of cultivation and treatment. Legislation for the 

 compulsory treatment of disease should be introduced, to deal 

 with any important crop that may be in any danger from bad 

 or uncleanly methods. School Gardens should be established 

 on the system already indicated, to help in introducing new 

 products, and to inculcate new ideas while the minds are still 

 plastic. Later, peripatetic teaching might be introduced, perhaps 

 in connection with some system of inspecting and teaching in 

 the school gardens, where the necessary concrete object lessons 

 are to hand, or in connection with peripatetic Experimental 

 Gardens, land being temporarily rented in a village, and the 

 local crops cultivated upon it according to the best methods. 

 It is possible also that some system of prizes for well-kept 



