October, 1910.] 



331 



Miscellaneous. 



IBBAGAMUWA AGRICULTURAL 

 SHOW. 



August 20th, 1910. 



The above Show was held on the 20th 

 August, at Ibbagamua school, and was 

 opened by Mr, G. S. Saxton. Govern- 

 ment Agent, 



There were in all fourteen sectious. 

 The Show of fruits was poor. Pome- 

 granate, lime, and gorake were well 

 represented. Vegetables made a very 

 good Show. Gourds, Chillis. Bandakkas, 

 Cassava, Cucumber, Pumpkins, and 

 Murunga were particularly good. 



The feature of the Show was the ex- 

 hibits from School Gardens in the dis- 

 trict, In all five schools competed. 

 Medamulle B. V. S. won the silver 

 medal, Hunupola and Kumbukwewe 

 were easy seconds. Ibbagamua received 

 Honorary mention. 



There was a good Show of oils and 

 honey. Under coconut oil there were 

 several good exhibits. Dry grains, 

 paddy and tobacco made a brave Show. 

 There was the keenest competition in 

 betel, and the judges experienced some 

 difficulty in awarding the medal. 



Fifty seven various uses and manu- 

 factures of the coconut palm were 

 shown by Ragedera Arachchi, who was 

 awarded a silver medal. Under arts 

 and manufactures the number of ex- 

 hibits was poor. Mats, baskets and 

 boxes made a good Show. The exhibi- 

 tion of plumbago was very good. 



Altogether the Show proved a great 

 success, and the Ratemahathmaya of 

 Heriyalethathpattu (Mr. J. G. Teune- 

 koon) and Kachcheti Mudaliyar (Mr. 

 Graham de Silva) are to be congratu- 

 lated. 



The Show ended with a very success- 

 ful ploughing demonstration with the 

 ' Meston ' and ' Pony,' conducted Messrs. 

 Wickramaratne, L. A. D. Silva. and my- 

 self in the presence of the R. M., Kach- 

 cheri Mudaliyar, the minor headmen 

 and several cultivators. 



Walter Molegode, 

 Agricultural Instructor, 



AGRICULTURE AND THE SUPPLY 

 OP LABOUR. 



(Prom the Agricultural News, Vol. IX., 

 No. 212, June 11, 1910.) 

 The conditions in the West Indies, as 

 in most tropical countries, are such that 

 nearly all labour may be considered to 

 be agricultural. The chief source of 



wealth is the soil, and it is to this that 

 man, aided by the changes that 'are 

 brought about in it by natural agencies, 

 applies his energies in order that he may 

 provide himself with the means of subs- 

 istence, and may, in so doing, raise crops: 

 that will find willing purchasers in other 

 countries. In this way, the population 

 is supported, and a requisition is made 

 upon other lands, whereby the means is 

 provided for obtaining such articles as 

 cannot be produced locally. 



The consequence of the soil as the 

 origin of the more necessary of the 

 commodities consumed by man has been 

 recognised for a long time, but there 

 has existed, nevertheless, a tendency to 

 under-rate the importanceanddignity of 

 the labour by means of which, only, it 

 can be made to yield the products that 

 are of special use to mankind. To this 

 there has been added the mistaken idea 

 that the duties of the direction of that 

 labour could be assumed equally well by 

 men of very different mental attain- 

 ments, and that nothing in the way of 

 special training was necessary or exped- 

 ient, in order that those duties may be 

 taken up in an efficient manner. The 

 attitude of true students of the subject 

 has always been of the opposite nature, 

 for mention may be made of such early 

 economists as Vaubau, who stated that 

 labour is the foundation of all wealth, 

 and agriculture the most important 

 species of labour, and William Petty, 

 who wrote : 1 Labour is the father and 

 active principle of wealth, lauds are the 

 mother.' 



Although this regard for the import- 

 ance of the soil to man had an early 

 origin, it was tempered, until recent 

 years, by the idea that its value as a 

 producer of crops must, of necessity, 

 decrease continually , that is to say, the 

 greater the amount of removal of crops 

 from it, the smaller became its power to 

 yield anew. This opinion was given an 

 axiomatic value by economists of the 

 school of J. S. Mill, who formulated the 

 law of diminishing production of land, 

 which stated that every successive appli- 

 cation of capital to cultivation must be 

 less profitable than the first. If this was 

 actually true, the logical course arising 

 from it would be quickly to cease to 

 employ capital for the working of a 

 given area of cultivated laud, after the 

 first few crops had been taken from it, 

 so that agriculture would soon consist 

 chiefly in the exploitation of new laud. 



Practical experience and scientific ex- 

 periment have demonstrated the fact 

 that the limits of the ability of the soil 

 to produce are definitely set by the 

 supply of light heat, air and water that 



