30 
to have been highly successful. We have a large 
attendance of tropical agriculturists, scientific and prac- 
tical, from nearly if not every country concerned. The 
number of papers on technical subjects is nearly 200, 
including within their scope almost every aspect of 
tropical agriculture. It will not be possible indeed 
within the week which is assigned to the Congress to get 
through our work unless we can depend on the co- 
operation of the many authors who are present in person 
and on those who take part in the discussions in observ- 
ing the utmost brevity in addressing the meetings, by 
confining themselves to essential points, and remember- 
ing that papers will be printed in the Transactions of 
the Congress. 
As it is also hoped to print the principal contributions 
to the discussions, those who take part in them are 
requested to assist our work by sending to the Secre- 
taries after the meetings succinct written reports of their 
remarks. 
It has been decided to consider a selection of subjects 
of general importance at General Meetings of the 
Congress, and at certain of these meetings it has been 
arranged for the chair to be occupied by well-known 
representatives of Governments or of industries, to 
whom the advancement of tropical agriculture is of vital 
importance. The improvement of cotton cultivation is 
to be considered at a General Meeting on June 29, 
when, I am happy to announce, Lord Kitchener, 
one of our Honorary Vice-Presidents, will take the 
chair. Lord Kitchener represents a country in which 
agriculture is the chief industry, and he has shown the 
greatest interest in its advancement and that of the 
great cotton growing industry in Egypt. Following a 
discussion of problems connected with the preparation 
and quality of plantation rubber a series of important 
papers on rubber will be read at a meeting on June 25, 
at which Sir Edward Rosling, formerly Member of the 
Legislative Council and Chairman of the Planters’ 
Association of Ceylon, will be in the chair. Questions 
connected with the cultivation of wheat and other cereals 
will be discussed at a meeting on the same day, at 
which Sir Louis Dane, lately Lieutenant-Governor of 
the Punjab, will take the chair. Co-operative Credit 
