THZIH 



TROPICAL AGRICULTURIST 



AND 



MAGAZINE OF THE 



CEYLON AGRICULTURAL SOCIETY. 



Vol. XXVIII. COLOMBO, JUNE 15th, 1907. No. 6. 



The Work of Local Agricultural Societies. 



So far as we have yet seen, these societies resolve themselves into two 

 classes— those in towns of some size, such as Galle, Kalntara, or Batticaloa, and those 

 in village districts. Those in the large towns frequently consist entirely or almost 

 entirely not of practical agriculturists, but of lawyers, traders, and others -men 

 whose interest in agriculture is usually indirect, but who are, generally speaking, 

 possessed of more, and more available, money than the genuine agriculturists. The 

 village societies, e.g., those of Telijjawila, Welimada, or Baddegama, on the other 

 hand, consist more of practical field agriculturists. 



Now it is obvious that societies of these two kinds should undertake different 

 kinds of work. It will be idle for a town society of the class indicated to work at 

 the best kinds of paddy to grow, or at the way to manure betel pepper, while it will 

 be almost equally idle for the village society to take up any such questions as 

 co-operation, which, in this country, requires outside funds at least to begin with. 



The society in any one place should concern itself with questions likely to be 

 of advantage in that place, and while a village society should stick more to experi- 

 mental gardens, rotation of crops, trial of new products, and such questions, a town 

 society might with advantage attend more to the necessary preliminaries to success- 

 ful agriculture, such as co-operation in all its forms (seed supply, manure supply, 

 sale of produce, and so on), road making, markets, education, and so on. 



We shall return to this question again. 



