Notes on the Society's Work in 1897-1918. xv. 



establishment and maintenance of such a school the proposal was not 

 then a feasible one. A difficulty also was that the sugar proprietors of 

 those days were unwilling to employ Creoles of the colony as overseers. 

 One of the first proposals regarding an Agricultural College for the West 

 Indies may be found in an address I delivered to the Agricultural Society 

 of Barbados on November 9th, 1886. Alluding to the necessity for 

 properly arranged and conducted agricultural experiments and of 

 trials of manures, etc., to be carried on with every scientific refine- 

 ment, I said " The latter must follow when we shall have established 

 " that great want of this Island and of the whole West Indies 

 ' : an Agricultural College, or preferably station, devoted to the study 

 " of the growth and requirements of tropical plants in tropical climates, 

 " and to imparting the knowledge so gained to the younger planters. 

 " I am myself convinced that far more success, both socially and finan- 

 " dally, will be attained by directing the studies of our youth to the 

 " phenomena of nature rather than as at present, chiefly to the tales and 

 "traditions of the ancient Greeks and Romans." 



In my opinion the desirability of (a) a central Agricultural College 

 for the West Indies and (b) Agricultural or Farm schools in various dis- 

 tricts in British Guiana, has not altered since the Society considered the 

 question in 1891-92 and again referred to it in 1897. 



The Society's interest in this highly important question appears to 

 have waned during recent years, but still some interest has always 

 been taken in it by certain of the members. Strangely no recom- 

 mendation as to the establishment of an agricultural or farm school in 

 this colony appeared in the Report of the West Indian Royal Commis- 

 sion. Yet Sir Daniel Morris very consistently and correctly held that 

 it is most difficult for men trained only in the rough and ready agricul- 

 tural methods of sugar plantatious on heavy clay soils to make such culti- 

 vations as those of coffee, cacao, cotton, limes or other fruit-crops and 

 rubber commercially successful. He held on very strong grounds that 

 many of the failures with regard to trials made with some of these pro- 

 ducts prior to 1897 were due to lack of technical training. Every 

 cultural pursuit which is dependent on intensive arboricultural or horti- 

 cultural methods requires far more scientific knowledge, practical skill 

 and unremitting minute attention than such extensive crops as sugar 

 and rice call for. 



In 1908-9 a Government Committee enquired into the question of 

 the establishment of an Agricultural School and reported favourably on it. 

 Later the then Governor, Sir Frederic Hodgson, after careful considera- 

 tion, approved of a portion of land belonging to Onderneeming School 

 Farm, and situated at a distance of half a mile or more from the In- 

 dustrial School, being used for the school. He visited the place accom- 

 panied by Sir Joseph Godfrey and myself and personally selected the site 

 for the buildings. By vote of the Combined Court a large area of the 

 land selected, including the site for the building which was an excellent 

 one on a high sandy reef, was cleared. But on a change in the Govern- 

 ment the question was again held up, and I fear that until the war in 



