Miscellaneous. 



502 



[Dec. 1906. 



which the Society is endeavouring to deal. Members who have perused the Progress 

 Reports published monthly will have noted the efforts of the Society to establish 

 new varieties of paddy from India and Japan — the introduction of new products, 

 such as date palm suckers, new varieties of yams from the West Indies, the encour- 

 agement of cotton cultivation in chenas, and distribution of vegetable seeds ; the 

 efforts to establish a sericulture industry, and the work done in castration of cattle 

 by the Government Veterinary Surgeon and his staff — particulars of which can be 

 obtained from paras. 10 and 17 of to-day's Progress Report. All these subjects have 

 had the attention and encouragement of Your Excellency and the members of the 

 Board. The use of the branch societies as co-operative centres for experiments and 

 for the adoption of the co-operative credit system is another side of the Society's 

 work. 



The usefulness of the Society justifies its existence, the success of its objects 

 Avould alone justify its extinction. The objects of no society can be achieved until 

 that society is rendered unnecessary. The usefulness of the Society, the worthiness 

 of its objects none may dispute, but, however useful the machine may be, however 

 sound the objects for which it is intended, it can never prove its use and succeed in 

 its objects until it is worked under the best conditions and proved to be generally 

 and practically useful. As is asked of every invention, how long will this principle 

 be admitted— will it not be pronounced obsolete or even absurd in a few years' time ? 

 So it is with this Society ; we must ask ourselves how far its elements are transitory, 

 what are its sources of strength and of weakness ; is its permanence assured ? The 

 Society is a voluntary one ; many of its members are no doubt attracted by the 

 knowledge that its President, His Excellency the Governor, takes the greatest 

 interest in its working and encourages its efforts ; others by the fact that they 

 receive an excellent magazine at a low cost. But it is not on any individual 

 member or any class of member that the Society depends for a continued course of 

 usefulness. This must depend on the local societies and the work done by them. 

 No amount of Board meetings, of discussions, of leaflets or magazines can save the 

 Society, if it is not in touch with the local cultivator. The question is : How can 

 it keep in touch with the great mass of the population of Ceylon? Only by making 

 itself heard in a language that they can understand. The Society, as I have said 

 before, is intended to be the great Agricultural Interpreter— it must have many 

 interpreters working under it. These interpreters must go out into the highways 

 and byways and preach improved systems of agriculture. Just as the school 

 gardens are intended to be centres of agricultural demonstrations, to teach villagers 

 how to lay out a garden and what to plant in it, so should the agricultural instruc- 

 tors be men who are able to explain the systems of cultivation the gardens are 

 intended to demonstrate. It is on its agricultural instructors that the success 

 of the Society as a popular exponent of agricultural truths must depend. No 

 information can be more usefully imparted than by practical demonstration. The 

 agricultural instructors must, then, be men who will take their coats off and show the 

 villager how to carry out experiments. It is not so necessary that they should be 

 disciples of any particular school of foreign thought on the subject of tuberculosis in 

 plants, as that they should have learnt to use their eyes and their hands. 

 They should be at first rather agricultural inspectors than instructors, reporters 

 of facts rather than repeaters of platitudes. If these men would only collect or 

 report on any specimens of disease caused by insect, or fungus I am sure that they 

 would prove most useful assistants to Mr. Green and Mr. Petch, as well as render great 

 benefit to the country. It is most important that the right stamp of man should 

 be obtained for these posts ; they must be capable both of working themselves and 

 making others work, possessed of influence as well as taking an interest in their 

 work. I need not say more as to their requirements, for it is on their instructors that 

 we must depend for securing and training the right stamp of men. It will not be 



