Preface xvii 



goods, thus helping to give more work for 

 the cheaper class of labour on this side, and 

 to improve the lot of the skilled artizan and 

 render his prospects more assured. There is 

 only one uncertainty about the whole matter, 

 an uncertainty, too, that should not exist, and 

 it is this: 



Who is going to plant up and attend to the 

 estates when the promoters, or promoting 

 directors, have left the ship, which they are 

 certain to do sooner or later, be it rubber, 

 coco-nuts, or anything else? Where are all 

 the managers and overseers necessary to 

 immediately supervise the native labourers 

 coming from ? Our farmers and agricultural 

 schools or colleges cannot supply them ; there 

 is only one thing to do we must not delay in 

 taking steps to train them ; that is to say, we 

 must establish at least two agricultural colleges 

 in the Tropics say one in Ceylon or elsewhere 

 in the East, and one in Trinidad or at some 

 other centre in the West. 



Even if we cannot get our tropical agri- 

 cultural colleges yet awhile, arrangements can 

 surely be made for those over here, or in our 

 Colonies, wishing to take up tropical planting 

 as a career to join a good agricultural college, 

 and attend special classes in tropical agricul- 

 ture held in London, Liverpool and other 

 large centres, and then be trained for a year 

 or more at one or other of the leading experi- 

 mental and botanic stations to be found at all 



