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able to understand better the suggestions that might be made 

 for improvement in any individual country. If we take our 

 own British Empire, within the last eight or ten years, there 

 have sprung up Departments of Agriculture in almost every 

 part of it. Take the West Indies. I think we have had five 

 Departments of Agriculture established within the last ten 

 years, and when you remember that our revenues are small, 

 and that the area from which we can draw men is very limited, 

 I think you will appreciate that the amount of money expended 

 by these small colonies is very great in comparison with what 

 is being spent by larger countries. From an intimate know- 

 ledge of what has been done in the West Indies during recent 

 years, and coming home to England and looking round, and 

 seeing what has been done 'here, I am inclined to this opinion 

 that in proportion to our revenues w<e are doing a great deal 

 more for agriculture in the small Colonies than is being* done 

 in England itself. I am really astonished at the backwardness 

 of English agriculture in the parts that I have seen, and at the 

 want of agricultural organizations throughout some parts of 

 the country. 



I would like, Sir, to mention in connection with your 

 Presidential Address that you seemed to think that the work 

 done by the Departments of Agriculture in our Colonies is not 

 up to as high a level as you think it ought to be. Well, 

 perhaps to a certain extent I will agree with you in that, but 

 you must remember that we are young departments. We are 

 trying to evolve a system that will be suitable to each of our 

 Colonies, and we have had to do it with a very small amount 

 of money, and, as I said before, with very limited material to 

 draw upon for assistance. We have the greatest difficulty, 

 even when a big problem arises, to get assistance in the Mother 

 Country. Much of our work perhaps has not been heard of 

 yet, because it is, as you know, inadvisable for us to publish 

 results before we have something definite to report. Take 

 the case of the frog-hopper problem, with which you are 

 acquainted, and which we have been studying for the last ten 

 years. We have not quite finished our researches in relation 

 to that problem yet, but we have done a great deal of work 

 and spent a considerable amount of money in connection with 

 it. We have employed local entomologists to study the 

 question, and two special experts have been employed also to 

 study it on behalf of the sugar proprietors. As you are aware, 

 Sir, it is extremely difficult to obtain an expert in any part of 

 the world at the present time to study a new problem like that, 

 and I would assure you that from what I know of the work 

 that is done in the Departments of Agriculture in our own 

 Colonies, we are making what I would say is satisfactory 



