February, 1909.] 



119 



mechanism and the use of them. These 

 professors have nevertheless their science 

 degrees at some University, and devote 

 their lives to the deepest study of the 

 sciences and to research work, These 

 men are absolutely necessary to fill the 

 chairs at the Universities, and for 

 research work, and as lecturers at the 

 Agricultural Colleges, etc. These men 

 would be a failure if they were sent out 

 iuto the field to carry out practical 

 agricultural operations, to the dairy to 

 work the cream-separator, pasturising 

 machinery, or make the butter, or work 

 all day, for example, handling timber and 

 feeding a circular saw, etc. In the same 

 manner a student at any first-class 

 Agricultural College receives only a 

 sufficient 



KNOWLEDGE OF THE SCIENCES 

 to help him in what is to be his vocation, 

 i.e., that of producing from the land ; he is 

 not turned out a complete lecturer on 

 the sciences, but as the man who can by 

 practical demonstration prove the com- 

 bination of science and practice. Send 

 him to the field, and he will carry out 

 any and every agricultural operation, 

 he will drive and repair when necessary 

 all the agricultural machinery, he will 

 work all dairy machinery and turn out 

 first-class butter; he is physically fit for 

 the hard toil that practical agriculture 

 means ; at the same time he will give you 

 the scientific why and wherefore of 

 every operation he is carrying out. It 

 is through him that the professors of 

 agriculture make practical use of their 

 deep study and investigation and benefit 

 the world. During his life he studies 

 the latest methods formulated by the 

 research of the professors, and so is able 

 to keep up with the progress that science 

 is making. Both these classes are abso- 

 lutely necessary to form the grand chain 

 of agricultural progress, but they must 

 not be confounded and mixed up as is 

 generally done, especially in a country 

 like Ceylon, where yet agriculture and 

 the modes and means of teaching it, etc., 

 is little known and often confounded in 

 a hopeless tangle. 

 Now that I have classified 



THE VILLAGE CULTIVATOR, 



described his maladies, aud also pointed 

 out some of the causes of the 

 failures of the past treatment that 

 was prescribed for him, it now remains 

 for me to formulate a scheme which 

 would form a complete course of treat- 

 ment and how it should be carried out. 

 In doing so I cannot do better than quote 

 from the "Tropical Agriculturist" of 

 July, 1900. After referring to the failure 

 of the Agricultural Commission that had 

 been sitting at the time "to enunciate 



a practical scheme for dealing with the 

 native agriculture of the country," it 

 goes on to state: — "In this connection 

 we might refer to another scheme which 

 we understand has been forwarded to 

 Government, the author of which is Mr, 

 Elliott, the late Government Agent of the 

 Southern Province, who since his retire- 

 ment has been working as a private 

 agriculturist ; and so having experience 

 (and that varied and extensive) of native 

 agriculture both as an official and an 

 unofficial, is eminently qualified to advise 

 on a question of this nature. We 

 understand that Mr. Elliott deprecates 

 the merging of the interests of what is 

 known as European agriculture with 

 those of native agriculture, as there is 

 so little in common between the two. 

 Besides, the former has its own powerful 

 machinery in the Planters' Association 

 of Ceylou to protect its own interests, 

 Avhile the Government of the Colony has 

 liberally provided help in the appoint- 

 ment of a number of expert scientists to 

 further protect those interests. Mr. 

 Elliot's scheme provides for a re-organis- 

 ed central school of agriculture, which 

 already exists, and a central experimen- 

 tal farm not far from Colombo, with 



BRANCH EXPERIMENTAL GARDENS 



all over the country. His whole scheme 

 is calculated to directly reach the village 

 cultivator." These views of Mr. Elliott 

 are immensely valuable as they come 

 from a practical agriculturist and a 

 man who" has studied the people of the 

 country. Mr. Elliott's views on experi- 

 mental gardens all over the country 

 is exactly what I depicted in my articles, 

 but we differ as far as the Agricultural 

 School is concerned. I stated and say 

 again that the starting of agricultural 

 schools should come as a resultant of 

 the experimental farms, as the people as 

 children must be educated first by the 

 Kindergarten method in the village 

 schools, then by the experimental farms, 

 and, in the course of some years, when 

 they have to some extent adopted 

 modern methods and show signs that 

 they want further education than what 

 can be taught at the experimental farms, 

 then is the time to start Agricultural 

 Colleges (certainly not in Colombo) fully 

 equipped with a lecturing staff and an 

 outdoor staff to instruct the science 

 and practice of agriculture. 



Now I come to the most difficult part 

 of the course of treatment, that is, of 

 procuring qualified practitioners to carry 

 out this treatment. I have stated above 

 that "Too much stress cannot be laid 

 on the choice of the men who are 

 to manage and work these places, 

 i.e„ (experimental farms), as on them 



