268 



tigate injurious insects with a view to their restriction or destruction. 

 Sixteen stations study and treat animal diseases or perform such opera- 

 tions as dehorning animals. At least seven stations are engaged in 

 bee culture, and three in experiments with poultry." 



Chemical analysis and the s udy of live stock are outside the limits of 

 our sphere, but attention is paid to nearly all the other points detailed 

 above. 



Dr True continues : — 



" The service which the stations have rendered in promoting the 

 education of our farmers is incalculable. 



" Even if the station bulletins recorded only facts well known to 

 .scientists and advanced agriculurists, the influence of such a far- 

 reaching system of popular education in agriculture must be very great. 

 So vast a scheme of university extension has never been undertaken in 

 any other line. 



"The stations have also taught the farmer how to help himself." 



The Jamaica Bulletin, which was started in a small way in 1887, 

 appearing at irregular intervals, has now increased to a publication of 

 24 pages, appearing regularly once a month, It is sent free by post 

 to all who ask for it, and the circulation is steadily increasing. 



The Department, indeed, takes in some respects a wider scope than 

 the Experiment Stations of the United States, for not only are practical 

 lectures given in various parts of the Island, but an agricultural element- 

 ary school is managed under its auspices, and the boys are trained in 

 practical work in the Gardens. 



II. ON THE GARDENS. 

 Hill Gardens. 



In previous Reports, e.g., in 1892, I have urged the establishment 

 of a Botanic Garden at some elevation between Hope Gardens and 

 Castleton at 600 feet and 580 feet respectively, and the Garden in the 

 Blue Mountains at 5,000 feet. The failure of the orange crops in 

 Florida has shown the necessity for an Orange Experimental Garden 

 here in a suitable locality, and at length this has been started at the 

 old coffee property known as " Resource," where a collection of citrus 

 fruit has been brought together and planted out. That the situation 

 is an excellent one for oranges is testified by the excellent fruit produced 

 in the locality, and as it can be worked as part of the Hill Garden, the 

 expense of another Superintendent, with buildings, etc., is thereby 

 saved. 



The following account, written in February last, may be embodied 

 here as expressing my hopes for the development of a large district of 

 the Island, and of the work which a Hill Garden may do in helping 

 on that development — and not of one district alone, but of the whole 

 Island. It is an accepted maxim in industries connected with plant 

 life — in horticulture, agriculture, forestry — that plants should be taken 

 from a cooler climate to a warmer, when transplanted, and not the 

 reverse : — 



" The ceremony by His Excellency the Governor of cutting the first 

 sod of the new driving roads along the southern slopes of the Blue 

 Mountain Range, inaugurated a new era of prosperity for a wide 

 stretch of country from Newcastle to the Cuna-Cuna Pass. 



