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



I have said that the older volumes of " Timehri " are in constant 

 reference in the Department of Science and Agriculture. May I venture 

 to throw out as a hint to its learned Editor that in the earlier volumes 

 there are many papers by im Thurn, Quelch, Darnell Davis, Hawtayne, 

 Jenman, Percival, Perkins, William Russell, A. Winter, McTurk, B. H. 

 Jones, Kirke, Francis, Rod way, E. A. V. Abraham and others, as well as 

 reproductions of papers by Hillhouse, Schomburgk and Campbell which 

 if reprinted in the pages of the present series of !: Timehri " would prove not 

 only interesting but highly instructive to its reiders ? 



At the second of the Committee meetings I attended since my re- 

 election to the Presidency, I was solemnly warned by a prominent mem- 

 ber of the Book Committee that the object of the Society is now purely a 

 literary one ; that it exists solely on account of its library ; and that any 

 attempt to re-introduce into it either an agricultural or a scientific trend 

 will be attended with disaster with regard to its membership. I regret 

 that the premier, in point of years of existence, Agricultural Society of 

 the West Indies, and I believe the second in the Empire, has sunk into 

 this parlous state and has degenerated into a circulating library mainly of 

 works of fiction. That statement caused me to deeply regret that I had 

 accepted the Presidency. Surely for an Agricultural Society which has 

 sunk into such a condition of technical decrepitude an expert of proved 

 ability in the perusal of sensational and ephemeral literature as exemplified 

 in cheap modern novels, would be a far more suitable person for the 

 Presidency than a man whose life has been spent in the pursuit of science, 

 agriculture and horticulture ? 



Possibly I have misread the signs of the times with regard to the 

 demand for novels at these rooms. May not the demand be clue to 

 anxiety on the part of many to discover a book designed to become a 

 classic in British literature ? Do they not take out, let us say for pur- 

 poses of illustration, 50 novels in the hope of finding one of literary 

 merit ? but I fear 2°/ o is too high a proportion to expect excellence in the 

 class of literature our members are forced to consume. But keenness 

 for ephemeral literature is an old complaint about the Society. Soon after 

 I first joined the Book Committee in 1891 or thereabouts that a sugges- 

 tion was made that standard works relating to Science and Agriculture 

 should be added to the library, but it was considered that their purchase 

 would prove too heavy a draiu on the funds set aside for novel-readers; 

 it was said in the Committee that if members wanted to know about any- 

 thing connected with Chemistry, they might ask the Government Chemist 

 and if about Botany, consult the Government Botanist. 



During late years the Society has laid stress on having popular 

 gatherings. In 1897, aided by the then Directors, I broke one of those 

 cast-iron rules of procedure, with which our worthy Assistant Secretary, 

 then as he does now, sought to bind down the, in his opinion hasty, activi- 

 ties of the Society by inviting Sir (then Dr.) Daniel Morris to address the 

 Society at an evening meeting without giving a week's notice to the mem- 

 bers. That address was the principal feature of that year, aad we one and 



