Miscellaneous. 



338 



of having raised it, and that it has cost no money ; (2) to introduce other 

 staple products of food like those which now take the place of rice, for those 

 who cannot at both meals afford the latter luxury ; (3) to grow fruits for the 

 market ; (4) to avail themselves of the beneficent offers of Government to assist 

 them in the cultivation of cotton and other products ; (5) to raise the owners 

 of small holdings from the hand-to-mouth existence in which they now live by 

 freeing them from the hands of the lender ; (6) and to improve the village 

 stock and so raise its money value. I would conclude with one word of caution. 



It would be a mistake at this early stage to depend solely on the working 

 Committee to inculcate these worthy objects on the villager. I must say to their 

 credit that the success of our work so far has been the wholehearted manner, 

 which has attracted the notice of our Assistant Government Agent, in which 

 the headmen of the Weligam Korle as a body have co-operated with the Secretary. 

 But the Committee being a selection of villagers cannot be quite free from the 

 inertia of the body from which they are drawn. In the distractions, too, of 

 their daily occupations they are apt to forget, or to defer as not being of any 

 urgency, the dissemination of these objects. They are therefore at present 

 supplemented by agents or lecturers, who are specially sent out to each division 

 once a month to speak to the people and inquire from them and examine the 

 progress they are making. The chief Headman and President also have unlimited 

 opportunities of meeting the people on their circuits, and those opportunities 

 should be made the occasions for informal Agricultural Society meetings to 

 repeat the details of the monthly meetings. There is great efficacy in repitition 

 of this kind on the uneducated mind ; and opportunity should be taken to 

 inspect humble efforts, however small they may be, to carry out their instruc- 

 tions. Such recognition will often be considered an honour, aud would serve as 

 a stimulus. 



Working with the machinery above indicated and aided by the school 

 garden, which is a most powerful instrument for disseminating agricultural 

 instruction, Agricultural Societies are bound to succeed in adding to the comforts 

 of the people. They will reduce idleness and thus remove one of the chief 

 causes of village disorder. These are our aims, and they are within the scope 

 of any Society to achieve. They involve much work of a kind, but it is work 

 that should and does afford much pleasure also— all the more so, because with 

 assiduous attention to detail, these Societies will be one of the few uplifting 

 agencies that will bring quiet and prosperity to the country. 



EXPERIMENT STATIONS AND AGRICULTURAL INSTRUCTION. 



The statement has recently been made that scientists often retard the 

 progress of general and industrial science by their impractical views of practical 

 affairs. The idea was not that investigation should be confined to utilitarian lines, 

 or that research in pure science should be restricted— for what is pure science in 

 one connection becomes applied science in another— but rather that in various lines 

 of research more rapid and surer progress would be made if investigators brought 

 to their work more practical knowledge of its economic relations. This appears 

 to be a reasonable deduction, and there is much evidence to bear it out. Granting 

 that all knowledge is useful, its useful aspects must be brought out, and there 

 must be intelligence in its application. 



In olden times men of science recognized that to secure support for their 

 investigations they must " disguise their work under a utilitarian cloak." As time 

 has gone on the world has become more sympathetic toward science and less 

 exacting in its demands to be assured of its immediate application. This is a result 



