Miscellaneous. 



453 



[November, 1909. 



Of creepers or climbers, Bignonia 

 venusta, Parana paniculata, Antigonon 

 leptopus (white), Thunbergia laurifolia 

 (white and purple) hold a high place. 



The plants referred to above and many 

 others newly imported are being estab- 

 lished at Mazeras, and though none, as 

 yet, are available for distribution, every 

 effort will be made to propagate them 

 as fast as possible. 



Photographic views illustrating the 

 cultivation and preparation of Para 

 Rubber, tea, cacao, and Ceylon are 

 submitted with this report. 



In conclusion, I wish to place on record 

 my deep appreciation of the kind assist- 

 ance rendered me in India and Ceylon 

 by all with whom I came in contact, and 

 1 also desire to state that it will be my 

 earnest endeavour to make all the 

 information gained of practical use in 

 the general development of agriculture 

 in the Protectorate. 



MODERN AGRICULTURE. 



(Prom the Louisiana Sugar Planter and 

 Manufacturer, Vol. XLIIL, No. 6, 



August 7th, 1909.) 

 Modern agriculture is fast becoming, 

 and, in fact, has already become, almost 

 an exact science. Half a century ago 

 book farmers and book farming were 

 regarded with contempt by the average 

 farmer, and this from the fact that at 

 that time book farmers failed and book 

 farming was a very deceptive guide. At 

 that time book farming was taught in 

 some cases conscientiously and with an 

 earnest desire to be of service to the agri- 

 cultural community. The trouble then 

 was that some of those interested bad 

 some slight knowledge of the subject 

 matter whereof they wrote, but still a 

 very imperfect knowledge, and writing 

 in degree as though they were well in- 

 formed, committed some outrageous 

 errors that were quickly discerned by 

 the farmers and even by those without 

 any book learning. 



All this has now changed and modern 

 biological studies have shown the close 

 relations subsisting between all forms 

 and shapes of living things. We now 

 find that the life of plants shows in its 

 transmission all of the phases of here- 

 dity, and many reversions to earlier 

 forms. Plant life and animal life are 

 so closely related that the line of 

 demarcation is scarcely distinguishable, 

 and, in fact, is in dispute. We have 

 plants with what seems to be a diges- 

 tive apparatus, capable of the solution 

 and assimilation of food, and we have 

 animal life living in active movement in 

 its early history, as the spats of oysters, 



and yet subsequently inert and immov- 

 able as any plant growing in the soil. 



That great Missouri statesman, Wil- 

 liam Hatch, for many years Chairman 

 of the Committee on Agriculture of the 

 House of Representatives in Washing- 

 ton, builded perhaps better than he 

 knew when he framed the now famous 

 Hatch Bill, which provided for national 

 aid to experiment stations in all the 

 States aud Territories of the Federal 

 Union. Mr. Hatch recognised the 

 recondite character of the actural worK 

 of the farmer, how difficult it was to 

 determine what, or why to do things, and 

 appreciated the many million of dollars 

 lost annually to the farming community 

 by mistakes in the work done, and, of 

 course done without adequate know- 

 ledge." While it is true that in nearly 

 every other direction wherein human 

 effort is exercised, conditions half a 

 century ago were far behind what they 

 are now, yet the teachings of half a 

 century have revealed to us the fact 

 that in agriculture we have the most 

 abstruse of all sciences and have so 

 many factors, controllable and uncon- 

 trollable, to consider in carrying on 

 agricultural work that as it stands to- 

 day the modern agriculturalist appar- 

 ently ought to be a very scentific worker 

 and able to reduce waste to a minimum 

 and to accomplish the greatest amount 

 of work and to secure the very best 

 results with the least outlay of human 

 effort and other expenditure. 



The various Experiment Stations 

 carried on throughout the Federal 

 Union have done their share during the 

 last twenty-five years in leading to the 

 wonderful advances made in modern 

 agriculture. The Louisiana Sugar Ex- 

 periment Station was one of the 

 pioneers in this good work, and we are 

 led to believe that the sugar industry in 

 this State would never have secured 

 its present proportions had it not been 

 for the aid of the station. All these 

 things take time, and it has taken a 

 quarter of a century for us in the sugar 

 industry to progress from the old rule 

 of thumb, then prevailing, up to the 

 modern methods of intense culture and 

 concentrated manufacture. 



Our rice planting industry in this 

 State, which is now the largest in the 

 Federal Union, and has been progress- 

 ing by leaps and bounds during recent 

 years, is in much the same condition as 

 was the sugar cane industry twenty- 

 five or thirty years ago. The experi- 

 ment station work now inaugurated in 

 this industry and that has been carried 

 on to some extent for several years, will 

 unquestionably show good results in 

 the end. The hearty co-operation 



