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A Tropical Colleg-e of Asfriculture. 



THE establishment of well-equipped agricul- 

 tural colleg-es in some of our more important 

 tropical colonies has long been regarded as highly 

 des'rable by men of \'-!sion to be found, more often 

 than some are willing to admit, among the 

 administrators of our overseas dominions and the 

 teachers of agriculture in this country, among 

 planters abroad and business men at home. The 

 most sanguine and far-seeing advocates of this 

 policy have never urged an immediate and whole- 

 sale application of the idea. All they have ven- 

 tured to hope for, at least at the outset, has been 

 the establishment of one such college, preferablv 

 in the West Indies, to serve the needs of our 

 West Indian and West African colonies, and of a 

 second, somewhere in the tropics of the old world, 

 to serve the needs of our colonies in East Africa 

 and South-eastern Asia. The official intimation 

 by the Secretary of State for the Colonies that on 

 September 21 the governing body of a West 

 Indian Agricultural College, which is to work in 

 affiliation with the Imperial Department of Agri- 

 culture in the West Indies, had been formally 

 constituted, affords some assurance that at least 

 one moety of the modest wish of those who care 

 for the Empire and its peoples may be fulfilled. 

 Those who have urged the foundation of insti- 

 NO. 2713, VOL. 108] 



tutions such as that of which the incorporation has 

 now been announced share the feeling that their 

 existence must lead to more precise acquaintance 

 with the conditions under which tropical crops are 

 raised, and to the provision of instruction in the 

 methods of tropical agriculture more satisfactory 

 than anything hitherto available for those who 

 wish to pursue a planting career. 



In this particular case the influence of the new 

 institution will not be confined to the colony ot 

 Trinidad, which has offered the land required for 

 the erection of the college buildings and of the 

 residences for the teaching staff. Like similar 

 tropical colleges already established bv the United 

 States Government in Porto Rico, Hawaii, and 

 elsewhere, to which students are attracted from 

 all parts of America, the new college may be 

 expected to draw its students from colonies other 

 than Trinidad and from regions beyond the West 

 Indies. It may, indeed, like the American Insti- 

 tutions alluded to, prove as important from a 

 home as from the colonial point of view, if the 

 opportunity be taken to establish between the 

 Trinidad College and the agricultural schools in 

 this country a reciprocal relationship under which 

 students in the latter are enabled to spend part 

 of their period of professional study in Trinidad, 

 there to receive practical instruction in tropical 

 methods and to acquire familiarity with tropical 

 conditions. 



The importance, from the Imperial point of 

 view, of institutions like the West Indian Agri- 

 cultural College promises to be more than aca- 

 demic. The existence of such colleges can 

 scarcely fail to further that increase in the output 

 of cultivated tropical raw materials which is so 

 urgently called for in the interests of the Empire. 

 Their influence may in time even lead to that 

 fuller understanding of tropical products, by 

 those who handle them in this country, which is 

 so greatly to be desired. 



There is a certain fitness in the circumstance 

 that the first tropical agricultural college to be 

 founded in the Empire should owe its existence to 

 the initiative of the \\'est Indies, which include 

 some of the oldest of our colonial possessions. 

 There will be a widespread desire that the success 

 of the new institution may equal that attained bv 

 the similar colleges established by the Govern- 

 ment of the United States and be such as to lead 

 to the foundation of institutions of the same kind 

 in those other overseas possessions where they are 

 required. 



