AGRICULTURAL EDUCATION IN THE GOLD COAST. 



By W. H. PATTERSON. 

 Government Entomologist, Gold Coast. 



AGRICULTURAL education is at the present time entirely 

 under the control of the Agricultural Department, and 

 the scope of work embraces : 



(1) The introduction, propagation, and distribution of 

 plants and seeds of economic products. 



(2) Research work relative to yields of crops; plant 

 pests and diseases, and means of controlling the same. 



(3) Instructional work, embracing training of pupils 

 to become agricultural staff officers, itinerant instructors, 

 schoolmasters to manage school gardens, and the local 

 agricultural shows. 



If the work of the early coastal settlers be left out, 

 educational measures may be stated to have been started 

 in 1888, when His Excellency Sir W. Brandford Griffith, 

 K.C.M.G., the then Governor, wrote: "It was mainly 

 with a view of teaching the natives to cultivate economic 

 plants in a systematic manner for purposes of export that 

 I have contemplated for some time the establishment of 

 an agricultural and botanical farm and garden where 

 valuable plants could be raised and distributed in large 

 numbers to the people in the neighbourhood in the first 

 instance, and afterwards sent further into the country 

 by pupils whom I contemplate taking from the schools 

 when willing to give their attention to industrial pursuits. 

 By their labour and agency, when sufficiently educated 

 for the purpose, additional farms or gardens could be 

 started, and by these means the people generally would 

 become acquainted with the fact that other products than 

 those indigenous to the country had been introduced into 

 it were thriving, and would be remunerative, and thus 

 observing the advantage to be gained by their pro- 

 pagation would be disposed to cultivate them. . . ." 



