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ditions. Their influence commenced with the child, and if they instilled 

 into him proper ideas on these subjects they would do the country in- 

 finite service. It was neither necessary nor practicable that all his 

 hearers should become scientific agriculturists, or that they should all 

 turn practical agriculturists out of their schools but they would be able 

 by reason of the training they were now receiving, to direct the minds 

 of the children into channels that would prove for their good. Every- 

 body was contributing to the cost of education, and it therefore behoved 

 them to see that the schools turned out men and women who would be 

 useful to themselves and to the community. There was not room in 

 Jamaica for another five thousand teachers, or another five thousand 

 lawyeis, or another five thousand doctors ; neither was there room 

 for another twenty thousand shopkeepers — it would mean ruin to 

 those who embarked in those lines ; but if the people would recog- 

 nize that the soil was the source of wealth there was plenty of room 

 for five million agriculturists, and in saying that he would ask them 

 what degree of prosperity a man could arrive at by school teaching. 

 They must know pretty well. If the country had a big surplus of 

 lawyers and doctors, lawyers' letters would go begging at a farthing a 

 piece, and doctors' visits would be had for nothing. But in agricul- 

 ture Jamaica had the whole world for her field. Here peasan' s had been 

 living in the past from hand to mouth ; they had been satisfied to plant 

 what was known as " catch crops," with the natural con-equence that 

 often they had nothing to depend on. The teachers should instil into 

 them the necessity for planting permanent crops, such as oranges, 

 coffee, and cocoa. Every man who planted a tree which produced 

 something did a service to his kind which could not be too highly 

 extolled. He was not an agriculturist himself, but he claimed that 

 he did know something about the needs of the country and about what 

 people wanted abroad. And one thing he knew was that, to use an 

 Americanism, Jamaica was not " the only pebble on the beach." If 

 she did not send her products to the markets in a proper condition she 

 would lose those markets. 



A vote of thanks was very heartily accorded to Mr. DeXEercado. 



.Responding, he said that what he was proudest of in his brief poli- 

 tical career was the fact that through his instigation and suggestions 

 to the Government the present sieps in the matter of agricultural edu- 

 cation had been made. All the time he was in the Legislative Council 

 he endeavoured to direct the attention of his fellow-members and of 

 the country to that matter, and he was very happy to know that 

 through the resolution which he was able to carry the present Board 

 of Agriculture had come into being. It had been a real pleasure to 

 him to give a little instruction on a subject with which he could claim 

 familiarity. Jamaica was his home, and if from the force of circum- 

 stances he was in a position to assist his fellow Jamaicans it was a 

 question ot duty with him. No greater assistance could be given the 

 people than by helping them to find means of livelihood and avenues 

 of prosperity for the growing population. He had given thought and 

 attention for several years to these matters. It was sometimes said, 

 when a man who did not till the soil told the people to do so, that he 

 Was trying to " keep them down." Personally, he always felt that he 

 would much rather be an agriculturist than a merchant, but one could 



