THE 



TROPICAL AGRICULTURIST 



AND 



MAGAZINE OF THE 



CEYLON AGRICULTURAL SOCIETY. 



Vol. XXXIV, COLOMBO, APKIL 15th, 1910, No. 4. 



A JOURNEY AROUND THE WORLD. 

 II. 



By J. 0. Willis. 



While in England for a little over 

 three months, we were mainly occupied 

 in visiting relatives ; and attended the 

 Darwin Centenary at Cambridge, where 

 we represented Peradeniya. We sailed 

 for New York on September 25, and 

 went straight to Boston, where we 

 represented Cambridge (England) at the 

 inauguration of President A. L. Lowell 

 as President of Harvard University, 

 Cambridge, Mass, After these great 

 functions were over, we gave a course 

 of lectures upon Agriculture in the 

 Tropics to an audience of about 60, 

 including several ladies. The general 

 line taken was an amplification of the 

 latter half of our book on this subject, 

 especially insisting upon the cardinal 

 necessity of arranging questions of land, 

 capital, transport, etc., before real agri- 

 cultural progress can begin. 



Considerable interest is taken in such 

 subjects in America, which struck us 

 as a country ready to admit that she 

 did not know very much about tropical 

 colonisation, and anxious to learn all 

 that could be learnt, with a view to 

 doing the best possible for the Philip- 

 pines, etc., where she admitted that 

 many mistakes must be in process of 

 making. Even in the women's colleges 



instiuction in economic botany, &c, 

 was in progress, and we gave a lecture 

 at Bryn Mawr College, by request, to a 

 class of nearly one hundred students, on 

 the Economic Geography of tropical Asia, 

 pointing out how the agricultural indus- 

 tries were determined by the geogra- 

 phical distribution of the plants, the 

 climate, transport, and labour facilities, 



In Philadelphia we read a paper on 

 the Botany of Ceylon to a large audience 

 at the American Society of Natural 

 History, the oldest scientific society in 

 America, and had a good discussion 

 afterwards. We spent some time in the 

 great Commercial Museum in this city, 

 which is in many ways the finest of 

 its kind in the world; and some features 

 of which, notably the public lectures, 

 and the aid given to schools by lending 

 them small collections with books of 

 information, diagrams, etc., are well 

 worthy of imitation locally. 



In New York the most striking change 

 since last we were there is in the height 

 of tlie buildings, two of which now 

 reach 640 and 720 feet. Being built of 

 steel and concrete these buildings are 

 quiet, clean, and safe, and the system 

 of construction might very well come in 

 in Colombo, where the light is as good 

 as in New York. In London, on the 

 other hand, it would be perfectly dark 

 in a street with such lofty buildings. 



