TECHNICAL EDUCATION 

 IN TROPICAL AGRICULTURE, 



TECHNICAL EDUCATION! IN TROPICAL AGRICULTURE. 

 By GERALD C. DUDGEON, F.E.S. 



Consulting Agriculturist, Ministry of Agriculture, Egypt; 

 Vice-President, International Association for Tropical 

 Agriculture. 



THE rapid extension of plantations in the British 

 tropical dependencies, exploited by capital subscribed to 

 a large extent in the Mother Country, has rendered com- 

 petition in the markets for the products of such planta- 

 tions so keen that the most skilled supervision of the 

 latter is now demanded. Carefully reasoned and scientific 

 principles require to be substituted for the crude rule-of- 

 thumb methods which have amply served their purpose 

 in the past, but which are quite inadequate for ensuring 

 success in the future. 



Proprietors of tropical plantations from time to time 

 seek for new candidates, to fill the subordinate posts of 

 plantation assistants, who shall have acquired even an 

 elementary knowledge of the subject with which they 

 would have to deal; but instead, they are obliged to be 

 satisfied with the engagement of young men who have 

 obtained a diploma of agriculture at an English college 

 or with those who have relinquished plantation work 

 elsewhere. In the case of the former it often happens 

 that after having been put to the trouble of training them 

 the most promising among them are quickly appreciated 

 by the owners of neighbouring plantations and they 

 cannot be retained by their original trainers. In the case 

 of the latter it is obvious that in many instances the result 

 I 



