August, 1909.] 



157 



Miscellaneous. 



real value in the novel conditions which 

 the emigrants are likely to encounter ? 

 Will it not be better to send them as 

 boys to the new countries, there to learn 

 their work by experience ? 



When the diverse conditions under 

 which hortriculture is carried on are 

 considered ; when the climate of Canada, 

 severely continental in type, is contrast- 

 ed with the insular climates of our 

 tropical island possessions ; when re- 

 gard is paid to the varied produce of the 

 Empire, it may well seem as though the 

 experience to be gained at home could 

 be of but little service to the emigrant 

 in his new surroundings. 



Nevertheless we believe that to draw 

 such a conclusion would be to make a 

 profound mistake. The successful horti- 

 cultuiist learns by experience to control, 

 in as large a measure as is humanly 

 possible, the conditions under which his 

 plants are growing. He knows, con- 

 sciously or unconsciously, the ideal con- 

 ditions for certain plants, and proceeds 

 sagaciously to provide the closest ap- 

 proximation to those conditions. His 

 plants, like all plants, have simple wants 

 — water and air, sunlight and warmth, 

 together with small quantities of 

 soluble compounds such as nitrogen and 

 phosphorus. Some plants, it is true, 

 need more water or light than others. 

 But the peculiarities of the plants which 

 grow at home are as wide as those that 

 grow anywhere. 



Therefore, the knowledge he has 

 gained here will stand him in good stead 

 abroad. He will make mistakes ; but so 

 he does at home. He will be confronted 

 with special difficulties ; but so he will 

 be wherever he may practise his craft. 



The training which he had at home 

 would, moreover, unless it were of an 

 inadequate kind, teach him caution ; for 

 it is only the half-trained who think 

 they have nothing to learn. 



It would be a good thing if the men 

 going out from these shores to grow 

 fruit in British Colombia, rubber in 

 Malaya, or tea in Ceylon, were men 

 trained in the general, universal princi- 

 ples of horticulture, and not men, 

 trained or untrained, selected haphazard 

 by the careless hand of chance. 



For this purpose no small horticultural 

 college, with its good intentions and 

 necessary limitations, would suffice- 

 Such a horticultural station as that con- 

 templated by the Innes bequest might, 

 without detriment to home interests 

 which should be its first care, form a 

 centre for such Imperial training. What 

 is wanted is an Imperial Institute of 

 Horticulture ; an institution amply 



endowed and supported by the consti- 

 tuent members of the Empire. Such an 

 institution would not, of course, be a 

 teaching body only ; it would investi- 

 gate as well as instruct. Nor would it 

 exist solely for the service of the colonies 

 and dominions of the Empire ; it would 

 benefit also the home country. An insti- 

 tution of the kind would not only train 

 men to go abroad and train men for home 

 horticulture, but it would attract men 

 from the Colonies themselves. To it 

 would come men from the east and from 

 the west in order that they might learn 

 the latest word of horticultural wisdom. 



This is no place to discuss detail ; as, 

 for instance, whether anyone should be 

 admitted to study at the Imperial Insti- 

 tute of Horticulture before he had 

 worked for a term at the practice of 

 horticulture, or whether the manual and 

 mental parts of the work should be 

 carried on simultaneously — we refrain 

 from using such words as " practical " 

 and " scientific " in antithesis, To do so 

 is ridiculous ; for if science is not practi- 

 cal, and if practice is not scientific, then 

 both are nonsense. 



The proposal thus outlined in briefest 

 fashion may seem, even to those who 

 sympathise with the aspirations suggest- 

 ing it, too bold to be likely of realisation. 

 It is true that such a scheme Avould 

 require the expenditure of a large sum of 

 money. But when the importance and 

 the magnitude of the work which such 

 an institution would perform are con- 

 sidered, it cannot be doubted that the 

 money would be well expended. Other 

 industries, great and imposing, it is 

 true, but, nevertheless, of lesser magni- 

 tude than those of agriculture and 

 horticulture, have their " Charlotten- 

 burgs." In this country we are still 

 without a Chair of Horticulture at any 

 of the Universities, and it is not long 

 since the first Chair of Forestry was 

 established. Why, at the next Imperial 

 Conference, should not such a proposal 

 as that outlined here be given consider- 

 ation ? 



NEW PLOUGH FOR SIND. 



By G. S, Henderson. 

 (Illustrated.) 



(From the A qricultural Journal oj India, 

 Vol. IV., Pt. 1, January, W09.; 

 On the Mirpurkhas Farm the following 

 form of wooden plough has been found 

 to do very good work. It is a slight 

 m odificatiou of the indigenous wooden 

 plough of Egypt. With perennial irri- 

 g ation, where the land can always be 



