TROPICAL AGRICULTURIST 



AND 



MAGAZINE OF THE 



CEYLON AGRICULTURAL SOCIETY. 



Vol. XXXVIII. COLOMBO, JANUARY 15th, 1912, No. f. 



SIR JOSEPH HOOKER, O. M. 



It was with deep regret that we read 

 last month of the death of Sir Joseph 

 Hooker on December 10th at the vener- 

 able age of 94. Sir Joseph Hooker, as 

 the leader of the Botanical World for 

 half a century, was entitled to the parti- 

 cular sympathy of all students of Tro- 

 pical Agriculture — for Agriculture is 

 essentially a branch of botany — and his 

 name is specially connected with Ceylon 

 by three events. These were his collabor- 

 ation with Dr. Thwaites in the prepar- 

 ation of the enumeration of Ceylon 

 Plants— the first scientific flora of Ceylon, 

 his completion of Trimen's Flora of 

 Ceylon when that work was left un- 

 finished at the death of its distinguished 

 author, and the introduction of Hevea 

 Rubber to the East, which was made at 

 his instigation as Director of Kew 

 Gardens. The fourth and fifth volumes 

 of the Flora of Ceylon were edited by 

 Sir Joseph Hooker, and the greater part 

 of the fifth volume was written by him. 

 The story of the introduction of Hevea 

 to Ceylon is now well known, and it is 

 retold in a forthcoming Circular of the 

 Royal Botanic Gardens, Peradeniya. 

 Ceylon is also indebted to the former 

 Director of Kew for a host of other 

 horticultural and agricultural introduc- 

 tions. There can be few of our readers 

 who will not wish to have recalled 



some of the leading features of Hooker's 

 life and character, and we have there- 

 fore extracted the following eloquent 

 tribute from the pages of the Gardeners' 

 Chronicle (No. 1,303. Vol. L., December 

 16, 1911):— 



Sir Joseph Hooker, O. M. 



Sir Joseph Hooker died at his residence 

 at Sunningdale, on Sunday, December 

 10th. 



His death will be mourned through- 

 out the world of science and in the larger 

 world, wherever there are men to rever- 

 ence a noble life and to honour splendid 

 achievement. For Hooker was not only 

 the greatest of British botanists ; he 

 was one of the great outstanding men 

 of his age. That position he won by the 

 hardest yet surest of ways, that of doing 

 his special work supremely well. 



Though he lived far beyond the allot- 

 ted span of human life, Hooker, the man 

 of science, never grew old. As each new 

 generation of botanists arose, it turned 

 to Hooker as its acknowledged master. 

 The man who had been alive and at 

 work in what seemed to the younger- 

 men a remote past was still alive and at 

 work in their midst. The man who led 

 the van of scientific progress in the 50's 

 of last century remained, by right of 

 brain and example, our leader till his 

 death. 



