Preface xliii. 



required, an expert, as described above, should 

 be permanently appointed to, and reside in 

 the colony, with a suitably equipped scientific 

 institute placed at his disposal, in which further 

 investigations and experiments could be carried 

 out and checked." 



Dr. Schulte is quite right, and perhaps up to 

 a certain point it can be claimed that such work 

 can be carried out in some of our colonies, but 

 not sufficiently to give confidence to those who 

 wish to see an assured success in view before 

 they send out their sons to take up planting, 

 or entrust their capital to ventures run by 

 other people's sons. Such investigations once 

 started and discussed as those reported in the 

 forthcoming pages must satisfy no one, they 

 are only intended to point the way to further 

 research, but that way is, I fear, too intricate 

 and costly for individual action to carry 

 out all such investigations to their uttermost 

 point of finality. To do that we need a centre 

 or centres of learning which will stand in 

 relation to the plant world on the same lofty 

 plane that hospitals do with human beings, 

 that is to say we need agricultural colleges in 

 the Tropics to train plant-doctors and experts 

 overseas, as we have long had to train physi- 

 cians and doctors over here. 



As things now are, whilst the public get the 

 benefit of cheaper tea, &c., and the Exchequer 

 scoops in its millions of revenue therefrom, the 

 planter is left alone to discover how he can 



