92 



JOURNAL OF THE ROYAL HORTICULTURAL SOCIETY. 



/ 



HORTICULTURAL EDUCATION IN GREATER BRITAIN. 



By R. Hedger Wallace, F.R.H.S. 



It is not my intention to-day to go over the same ground that was 

 covered last year in the lecture on Horticultural Education, as it is 

 the common ground which has so often been taken up by various 

 authorities, great and small. My desire rather is to direct your attention 

 to what is being done in our colonies and dependencies in respect to 

 horticultural education, because I hold the opinion that horticultural 

 education in the motherland has, or should have, two aspects : i.e. the 

 training of those whose sphere of work or labour will be within the 

 borders of the old country, and also of those who will be dwellers and 

 workers in some part of Greater Britain. The latter aspect, I am sorry 

 to say, we rather neglect, and even ignore, in our courses of instruction at 

 home, and my aim to-day in sketching and drawing your attention to the 

 work undertaken in various parts of the Empire is to induce all who are 

 interested, and specially those who are in any way responsible for any 

 form of horticultural education, to give the needs of the future colonist 

 and tropical planter some attention as well as the needs of the British 

 horticulturist. 



There are, of course, difficulties in the way, but it has been well said 

 that difficulties are made to be overcome. In making our survey I 

 .vould ask that one or two points might be borne in mind. First of all 

 there is the immense area of the British Empire, that is, of the Colonies 

 and other non-contiguous territory under the British flag, this area 

 being practically a hundred times as great as that of the Mother Country.* 

 As this territory is scattered over the face of the globe, there must also 

 be very great diversity in respect to the two great horticultural factors, 

 soil and climate. Then the density of population must have its influence 

 on horticultural interests in this area, especially when we find such 

 variations as seven persons to the square mile in the Colonies (including 

 both the self-governing and Crown Colonies), 152 persons to the square 

 mile in India, and 313 to the square mile in the United Kingdom. 



The various lands that thus comprise the Empire outside the United 

 Kingdom can be roughly classed into two divisions, i.e. the temperate 

 and the tropical. In the former — the temperate — the colonist is himself 

 a worker, and horticultural work is done by men of the same race as our- 

 selves, and to a great extent on similar lines. Perhaps temperate South 

 Africa modifies this general statement, for- there, when possible, the 

 manual labour of an inferior race is taken advantage of. In tropical 

 lands, however, the white emigrant or sojourner does not, as a rule, per- 

 sonally labour, and his knowledge of horticultural details must, therefore, 

 be of a different order from that of the natives. Again, the horticultural 

 requirements and knowledge of the Datives themselves vary, and no 

 general statement could be made to apply with equal force, for example, 

 * Mother Country, 120,070 square miles; Empire, 12,043,800 square miles. 



