77 



and give instruction as to how the work is to be done, and 

 they, in conjunction with one or two others, judge the work 

 at the end of the year. The results have been so very satis- 

 factory that it is our intention, as soon as we are able to 

 provide other instructors, to extend that system to the whole 

 of the island. The improvement in cocoa cultivation and cocoa 

 estate sanitation since the introduction of this prize system has 

 been very marked and very gratifying to the Board of 

 Agriculture, which provides the prizes. 



M. E. LEPLAE (Director-General of Agriculture, Colonial 

 Office, Belgium) : Mr. President and 1 Gentlemen I wish to say 

 that my Department has read with great interest all that has 

 been said by the honourable President, and all that has been 

 written in Tropical Life on the necessity of establishing 

 agricultural colleges in the tropics. This subject is especially 

 interesting to Belgians, as we are new-comers in the field of 

 tropical agriculture, and have to learn everything in that 

 respect from the older colonies. We sincerely regret that there 

 is not at present for students a single high school of agri- 

 culture in the tropics a really astonishing fact considering 

 that of the total value of exports of the tropical colonies, 75 

 per cent., according to recent statistics, is derived from 

 agriculture. There is a very small number of high schools of 

 tropical agriculture, but they are all in Europe. A very 

 similar situation prevailed some years ago with regard to 

 the agriculture of sub-tropical countries, but there are now 

 excellent schools in several of the French colonies, in the 

 Southern States of America, in South Africa, in Egypt, in 

 India, I believe, and in some other countries. How is it that 

 the teaching of tropical agriculture in the tropics is still non- 

 existent ? First of all, the climate is a serious drawback", as a 

 tropical school will assume a great responsibility as to the 

 health of the students. Special care will have to be taken, 

 and special accommodation and costly buildings will be needed. 

 Then the teaching staff, if it is to be really efficient, will be 

 very expensive. The first cost, and the upkeep, of the scientific 

 equipment will be very high, and a consequence of all these 

 expenses will be that the students will have to pay very high 

 fees for board and tuition. However, a school of tropical 

 agriculture established in the tropics and in touch with 

 up-to-date tropical plantations would offer such advantages 

 from a practical point of view that the high expense should be 

 considered only with the purpose of finding a way to reduce it 

 as much as possible. I beg to submit to this Congress a 

 scheme that was discussed four years ago, when I was 

 travelling in the Dutch colony of Java with Heer Lovink, the 

 Director of Agriculture there. My idea was to send a good 



