October, 1912.] 



277 



AGRICULTURAL COLLEGES FOR THE 

 TROPICS. 



The Editor of Tropical Life (Mr. H. Hamel Smith) has contributed the 

 following letter to the Westminister Gazette on the above subject :— 



" The chief producing centres in the tropical Colonies of this country 

 are sadly in need of facilities for encouraging the higher agricultural 

 education of those who are in a position to go to the Tropics as planters. 

 The colleges would repay their cost, for if men on this side were as care- 

 fully and thoroughly trained to develop and extract the visible wealth 

 out there as they are to exploit the minerals underground, the benefits 

 would be very substantial. They would, in the aggregate, far exceed any 

 benefits that we, as a nation, have obtained even from mining, 



" Organised agricultural science in the Tropics, culminating in one or 

 more agricultural colleges, would not only directly benefit the students 

 passing through them, but by attracting and concentrating attention on 

 the subjects taught on the spot, would greatly increase our ability to 

 add to the national wealth, and increase and assure the supplies of our 

 raw material from overseas. This, in turn, would augment the purchasing 

 power of the producing centres, whose much larger orders for machinery 

 manufactured goods, provisions. &c, would keep our factories busy and 

 our people employed. 



" The very fact that one or more agricultural colleges have been 

 established in the Tropics would attract the attention of an energetic, 

 ambitious, and extremely useful class of capitalist to those centres as 

 channels for investment and trade. These at present hold aloof because 

 they see no reliable means of training themselves for such a life. With 

 many fathers of families having sons to place out in the world, or younger 

 men with capital, once they can see their way clear to obtain a good 

 return on the labour and money they are willing to expend on one or 

 other of the tropical agricultural industries, a very large number, with 

 only a few thousands to invest, would be willing to pay for their training 

 first at an agricultural college on this side on general principles, and then 

 at the College in the Tropics to specialize. 



" It has been suggested that the would-be planter can obtain the 

 desired instruction at existing institutions. I believe I am right in saying 

 that it is not so. 



" The future leadership of the world lies with the nation owning the 

 most fertile and well developed land, as through these it will own the 

 heaviest purses ; individual and national wealth will decide who is to 

 lead. We must, therefore, not neglect to train men to develop the sur- 

 face wealth of the Tropics, as we do others to exploit the minerals, We 

 must train men to go abroad and increase the resources of the Empire to 

 the utmost degree possible. 



"The island of Trinidad, W. I., which almost needs a magnifying 

 glass to find on the map, annually ships just over £1,000,000 sterling of 

 cocoa. Its best friends have to own that this amount should have been 

 doubled or trebled ten years ago. Had the planters had the benefit of an 



