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able to understand better the suggestions that might be made 
for improvement in any individual country. If we take our 
own British Empire, within the last eight or ten years, there 
have sprung up Departments of Agriculture in almost every 
part of it. Take the West Indies. I think we have had five 
Departments of Agriculture established within the last ten 
years, and when you remember that our revenues are small, 
and that the area from which we can draw men is very limited, 
I think you will appreciate that the amount of money expended 
by these small colonies is very great in comparison with what 
is being spent by larger countries. From an intimate know- 
ledge of what has been done in the West Indies during recent 
years, and coming home to England and looking round, and 
seeing what has been done here, I am inclined to this opinion 
—that in proportion to our revenues we are doing a great deal 
more for agriculture in the small Colonies than is being done 
in England itself. I am really astonished at the backwardness 
of English agriculture in the parts that I have seen, and at the 
want of agricultural organizations throughout some parts of 
the country. 
I would like, Sir, to mention in connection with your 
Presidential Address that you seemed to think that the work 
done by the Departments of Agriculture in our Colonies is not 
up to as high a level as you think it ought to be. Well, 
perhaps to a certain extent I will agree with you in that, but 
you must remember that we are young departments. We are 
trying to evolve a system that will be suitable to each of our 
Colonies, and we have had to do it with a very small amount 
of money, and, as I said before, with very limited material to 
draw upon for assistance. We have the greatest difficulty, 
even when a big problem arises, to get assistance in the Mother 
Country. Much of our work perhaps has not been heard of 
yet, because it is, as you know, inadvisable for us to publish 
results before we have something definite to report. Take 
the case of the frog-hopper problem, with which you are 
acquainted, and which we have been studying for the last ten 
years. We have not quite finished our researches in relation 
to that problem yet, but we have done a great deal of work 
and spent a considerable amount of money in connection with 
it. We have employed local entomologists to study the 
question, and two special experts have been employed also to 
study it on behalf of the sugar proprietors. As you are aware, 
Sir, it is extremely difficult to obtain an expert in any part of 
the world at the present time to study a new problem like that, 
and I would assure you that from what I know of the work 
that is done in the Departments of Agriculture in our own 
Colonies, we are making what I would say is satisfactory 
