TECHNICAL EDUCATION IN TROPICAL AGRICULTURE 35 



remembered, can be securely established for the sum of 

 50,000 to 100,000 sterling at the most, and it is that 

 at such a centre a man could be easily and properly 

 trained to go across to the West Coast of Africa to 

 take up the imperial work of forestry and agricultural 

 instruction that is shown to be so extremely necessary if 

 the nations dependent on agriculture in the Black Con- 

 tinent (and, after all, everybody is dependent directly or 

 indirectly on agriculture and the products of the soil) 

 are not to suffer a serious set-back for the following 

 reason : 



" There have long been complaints that South Africa 

 is getting drier every year, and this has generally been 

 ascribed to the destruction of trees." Such is the open- 

 ing sentence to a short editorial note in the April number 

 of the Colonial Journal. In the second edition of my 

 book on the " Cultivation of Coco-nuts," I deliberately 

 included a short section at the extreme end of the book 

 on this very danger of deforestation to Africa, and, 

 quoting the report of the Royal Commission on Indian 

 Finance, I show that not only does the deforestation of 

 Africa tend to adversely affect the agricultural interests 

 of that country, but also of India, since we are told that 

 by one of the most stupendous miracles of Nature the 

 source of the rainy season, that is the monsoon in India 

 is derived from the heart of Africa. I do so because, 

 although South Africa does not include the West Coast, 

 yet I feel that, since we have got the Sahara up in the 

 North, and such a report has been sent in from the 

 South, there is danger if precaution is not taken in time, 

 that the centre, or equatorial portion of Africa, may 

 become affected in the years to come and lose the great 

 fertility that it now boasts of, by means of which it is 

 putting out huge exports of cacao and oil palm products, 

 of which both this country and the Continent of Europe 

 stand in such need. Ignorance, therefore, through 

 lack of training, may cause our officials in the Black 

 Continent to be indifferent to the deforestation of Africa, 

 or to prove unable even to check this drying up of the 

 African Continent complained of, which, should it occur, 

 must, from all we are told, first turn Africa into a veldt, 



