.56 



NA TURE 



[February 7, 1901 



AGRICULTURE IN THE WEST INDIES. 

 T^HE third annual AgricuUural Conference, under the president- 

 -*■ ship of Dr. Morris, Commissioner of the Imperial Depart- 

 ment of Agriculture for the West Indies, was held in the Legis- 

 lative Chamber, Bridgetown, Barbados, on January 5. Besides 

 Dr. Morris, the president of the Conference, and some fifty 

 official, scientific, agricultural and educational representatives 

 from the various West Indian colonies, there were present the 

 Acting Governor, a large number of officials and representatives 

 of the Legislature, and visitors. 



After the usual preliminary formalities, Dr. Morris delivered 

 his presidential address, which afforded a clear summary of the 

 progress made by the Department of Agriculture for the preced- 

 ing year and enumerated the questions which this Conference 

 wuuld be invited to discuss. The work of the officers of the 

 Department during the preceding year covered a wide range. 

 In the domain of the sugar industry it comprised researches to 

 improve the sugar cane, experiments to reduce the cost of culti- 

 vation, efforts lo advance the erection of central factories and 

 researches upon insect and fungoid diseases, including an ex- 

 haustive invcstijiation and monograph by the entomologist, 

 Mr. H. Maxwell Lefroy, on the moth borer (Dialraea sac- 

 charalis). 



Besides the work of the Department on the cacao industry and 

 the lime industry, an attempt had been made, with prospects of 

 success, to establish the growing of early potatoes for the English 

 market ; a small but promising onion industry had been estab- 

 lished in Antigua, and there was every reason to believe that the 

 fruit trade between Jamaica and the United Kingdom would 

 receive an enormous impetus by the subsidising a direct fruit 

 •steamer service between the Mother Country and that Colony, 



Agricultural education had occupied a large share of atten- 

 tion ; the teachers of the elementary schools of nearly all the 

 colonies were being trained by courses of lectures and demon- 

 strations to leach the elementary principles of agriculture in their 

 schools ; seven exhibitions, of value varying from 10/. to 75/. 

 per annum, had been awarded to pupils from first grade (public) 

 schools in the various islands which were tenable at Harrison 

 College, where a two years' course in agricultural science was 

 given by the Science Department, Barbados. Agricultural in- 

 dustrial schools had been opened at St. Vincent and Dominica. 



Nine botanic stations were now supported by Imperial funds, 

 and a large number of experimental stations had been instituted 

 in the various colonies, where experiments were being systemati- 

 cally carried out on questions connected with the sugar cane 

 and all the other products of the West Indies. 



Agricultural shows had been successfully carried out in three 

 of the islands under the auspices of the Department, which had 

 contributed 350/. in prizes and more than one hundred diplomas 

 of merit. 



The address concluded with some remarks upon the subject of 

 the treatment of diseased plants, and upon the advisability of 

 legislation with a view to prevent the introduction of plant 

 disease into colonies from without, and to provide for the 

 eradication of disease within the colonies. 



The following papers were read during the Conference : — 



Stigar Industry : Recent experiments with seedlings and 

 other canes, by Prof. d'Albuquerque and Mr. J. R. Bovell 

 (Barbados), and a short history of seedling canes in Barbados, 

 by Mr. J. R. Bovell (Barbados), followed by a discussion in 

 which representatives from all the colonies took part ; 

 cane farming in Trinidad, by Prof. Carmody (Trinidad) ; insect 

 pests of sugar cane, by Mr. H. Maxwell Lefroy, entomologist 

 ot the Department ; fungoid diseases of the sugar cane, by Mr. 

 Albert Howard (Barbados). 



Educational : Agricultural education and its place in general 

 education, by Rev. Canon Simms (Jamaica) ; teaching the 

 principles of agriculture in elementary schools, by the Hon. T. 

 Capper (Jamaica) ; results of ten years' experience with compul- 

 sory enactments in the Leeward Islands, by Mr. C. M. Martin 

 (Leeward Islands). 



<7««£ra/ :— Legislation to control bush fires, by Dr. H. 

 Nicholls (Dominica) ; the treatment of soils in orchard cultiva- 

 tion in the tropics, by the Hon. Francis Watts (Leeward 

 Islands) ; on rubber planting in the West Indies, by Mr. J. H. 

 Hart (Trinidad); pine-apple cultivation at Antigua, by the 

 Hon. Francis Watts (Leeward Islands); the marine resources 

 of the West Indies, by Dr. J. E. Duerden (Jamaica) ; bee- 

 keeping, by Mr. W. K. Morrison, the acting bee expert of the 

 Department ; the cultivation of onions at Antigua, by Mr. Wm. 



NO. 1632, VOL. 63] 



Sands ; zebra cattle in Trinidad, by Mr. J. H. Hart and Mr. 

 C. W. Meaden ; artificial drying of cacao, by Mr. G. Whitfield 

 Smith ; and experiments on the treatment of insect pests in 

 1900, by Mr. H. Maxwell Lefroy. These papers, together 

 with the discussions that followed them, will be produced in 

 the West Indian Bulletin, the official organ of the Imperial 

 Agricultural Department for the West Indies. 



The Chemical Section of the Conference, adjourned from the 

 previous year, drew up a report dealing chiefly with uniformity 

 of records in reports upon sugar cane experiments. The Edu- 

 cational Section held a meeting to consider matters connected 

 with the teaching of agriculture in elementary and first grade 

 schools, including the compilation of teachers' handbooks. 



J. P. D'Albuquerque. 



NATIONAL ASPECTS OF SCIENTIFIC 

 INVESTIGA TION. 



A S a rule, the recognition of scientific work by the State is 

 ■'*■ the last matter with which men of science concern them- 

 selves. Their work is sufficient for them, and they are content 

 with the results obtained, whether appreciated or not at the 

 proper value to the commonwealth ; they are the victors, but 

 they leave the spoils to others. Most true investigators are in- 

 spired by this unselfish sentiment, rather than by the desire for 

 personal profit, and all they ask for is the adequate provision of 

 means for research. Even this request is not urged with the 

 persistency necessary to produce elTccc. It must be remembered 

 that the general public, as well as the persons who have it in 

 their power to encourage investigation by granting subsidies and 

 extending other facilities, do not understand the fundamental 

 importance to the nation of contributions to the store of natural 

 knowledge. When they appreciate the fact that scientific work 

 furnishes the motive power of industrial progress, they will 

 regard it in a more serious and liberal spirit than at present. 

 For this reason no opportunity should be lost of reminding the 

 State of its duties and responsibilities as regards scientific work, 

 the claims of which are not urged with sufficient force by the 

 men engaged in it. Scientific societies and associations in 

 Great Britain interest themselves in the advancement of natural 

 knowledge, but it might be well occasionally to hold a meeting 

 for the purpose of stating some of the relationships between 

 research and national welfare. Such a meeting was held recently 

 at Baltimore, by the American Society of Naturalists, and 

 addresses on the attitude of the State toward scientific investiga- 

 tion were given by Prof. H. F. Osborn, Prof. W. Bullock Clark, 

 Dr. L. O. Howard, Dr. B. T. Galloway and Prof. W. T. 

 Sedgwick. The following extracts from the remarks made upon 

 this occasion are abridged from the report in Science. 



In the course of the remarks with which the discussion was 

 opened. Prof. H. F. Osborn said : — - 



A fair criterion of intelligence in the government of a country 

 is afforded by an examination of its annual budget. There is 

 first the provision for a certain number of expenditures which 

 are purely conservative, because the State must maintain itself, 

 it must defend itself, it must support a large class of office- 

 holders who are more or less useful. These expenditures may 

 be wisely and honestly made, but they largely go to waste ; they 

 are either immediately productive or altogether non-productive. 

 On the other hand, there are expendiiuies in the nature of in- 

 vestments, looking to the, future and characterising the most 

 far-sighted statesmanship. Conspicuous among these are the 

 funds invested in education and science. 



Said Helmholtz in 1862 : " In fact men of science form, as it 

 were, an organised army, labouring on behalf of the whole nation, 

 and generally under its direction and at its expense, to augment 

 the stock of such knowledge as may serve to promote industrial 

 enterprise, to increase wealth, to adorn life, to improve political 

 and social relations, and to further the moral development of 

 individual citizens. After the immediate practical results of 

 their work we forbear to inquire ; that we leave to the unin- 

 structed. We are convinced that whatever contributes to the 

 knowledge of the forces of nature or the powers of the human 

 mind is worth cherishing, and may, in its own due time, bear 

 practical fruit, very often where we should least have ex- 

 pected it." 



Of European countries Germany places in its budget the 

 largest productive investments of this kind ; France is not far be- 

 hind, England is perhaps fourth and affords a conspicuous 



