HORTICULTURAL EDUCATION IN GREATER BRITAIN. 



05 



seedlings, thinning and transplanting, shading, watering and weeding, 

 propagating, and other practical details. In addition agricultural schools 

 of various types have been started, so that instruction in agriculture or 

 horticulture may reach every section of the community. This West 

 Indian area is also provided with a scientific advisory staff, conferences 

 and meetings are held, Government experts lecture and demonstrate, and 

 various official publications are issued and distributed. In the West 

 Indian group it will be noted that the interests of horticultural education 

 are furthered in many ways : for instance, through the teaching in 

 elementary, secondary, and special schools, through the object lessons 

 which botanical gardens and stations and experimental plot provide, and 

 through conferences and publications, and the utilisation of the services 

 of experts and specialists. 



Keeping still within the tropics, when we cross over to our settlements 

 on the W T est and East Coasts of Africa it would appear that little is done 

 in this region besides maintaining botanic stations. There are two stations 

 in Sierra Leone and one at the Gambia. At the Gold Coast there is a 

 botanical and forestry department, an old and a new botanic station, and 

 small school plantations. Lagos has two model farms and a botanic 

 station, and Southern Nigeria a botanical department and experimental 

 plantations. A botanic station, as has already been indicated, is a fixed 

 but progressive object-lesson for the community, a means by which 

 economic plants are introduced, cultivated, acclimatised, and distributed, 

 and in a sense also it is a practical school for the labourers engaged on 

 the station. On the East Coast of Africa there is a botanic station at 

 Uganda and another at Zomba, which do the same kind of work as 

 the stations on the West Coast. Off the East Coast there is another 

 botanic station on one of the islands for the Seychelles, and in Mauritius 

 there is a botanic garden, a Station Agronomique, and a horticultural 

 training school, while much useful work is done in the distribution of 

 plants and seeds among growers. 



Coming to the group of warm, temperate, and sub-tropical colonies in 

 South Africa, we find here the same problem which presents itself in the 

 AVest Indies, i.e. the presence of two diverse races, with the further pro- 

 vision that the dominant position of the white race is much more marked 

 in South Africa than in the West Indies. Horticultural education in this 

 area, to whatever extent it exists, is not intended for the black races, except 

 the instruction given at certain farm schools and mission schools. In Cape 

 •Colony the principles of horticulture are taught at the Elsenburg College, and 

 the Government, as in Canada, gives grants to botanical gardens and societies, 

 recognises the work of boards of horticulture, issues a journal, and retains 

 the services of various experts and specialists on behalf of horticulturists. 

 In Natal, though there is no direct teaching of horticulture, the Govern- 

 ment indirectly advances, as at the Cape, the horticultural education of the 

 rural population by supporting an advisory staff, a Government farm 

 station, publishing a journal, and giving grants in aid to societies. In 

 Rhodesia grants in aid to societies are also given and experimental gardens 

 are maintained. Although it is too early to say what will be done in our 

 new colonies — the Transvaal and Orange River — yet this year over 

 -£20,000 has been placed to the credit of the Department of Agriculture 



