HORTICl'LTI KAL EDUCATION IN OREATKK BRITAIN. 



The Singalese is not by any means a born gardener, and Buffers from a 

 lack of interest in these tilings. The Tamil is also not a keen gardener. 

 The methods of horticulture are naturally quite different from those of 

 Europe. There is in Colombo an agricultural school which teaches 

 horticultural .subjects, and there is a travelling inspector in connection 

 with the native schools and 'nature study.' The lack of water doling a 

 large period of the year in the major portion of the island tends to dis- 

 courage gardening, but agri-hortictiltiiral shows at various centres and 

 times help in the other direction." J may add, supplementing Mr. Car- 

 ruthers' communication, that I believe the work at the Colombo School 

 of Agriculture has been reduced, and that some of the money th,*it was 

 allotted to it is now expended on school gardens. 



Going next to the Straits Settlements, we find botanical gardens at 

 Ponang and Singapore, and Government experiment.;).] gardens in the 

 Federated Malay States, all of them demonstrating media. Jn respect to 

 horticultural education Mr. Ridley, the Director of the Singapore Gardens, 

 writes me : " We have done nothing here as yet. In fact wo have not got 

 the kind of people here to whom any such instruction would be of use, 

 the only horticulturists being Knglish planters in the Malay States and 

 Chinese, who would not attend any lectures. I proposed once to start a 

 course of agricultural lectures, but could only find one possible auditor." 



In Australasia the methods of furthering horticultural education are 

 somewhat similar to those employed in Canada, the principal object being 

 to benefit adults who are already land cultivators. In Tasmania, where 

 fruit growing has been long established, little is done besides providing 

 inspectors for codlin moth and vegetation diseases. No special oppor- 

 tunity is offered to young men in Tasmania to receive a training in horti- 

 culture, and the same may be said about Western Australia. The latter 

 State, however, provides experts and issues bulb-tins; but this expenditure 

 benefits, as already indicated, those at work on the land, and does not 

 provide a young man with a calling. In a country like Australasia, with 

 about two persons to the square mile, there is at present little call for the 

 professional gardener ; every man must be, more or less, his own gardener. 

 All the States in the Commonwealth, however, it may be noted, retain 

 the services of specialists and experts, subsidise horticultural societies, 

 encourage meetings and discussions, and support farms and gardens that 

 are intended to be object lessons for the community. At the agricultural 

 colleges in South Australia, Victoria, New South Wales, and Queensland 

 horticulture, to some extent, is studied by the students. Market garden- 

 ing, as a branch of general horticultural practice, does not seem to attract 

 the Australian horticulturist ; and it may be added that a market gard< n 

 in Australia is seldom termed such, the generic appellation b<-ing 

 *' Chinese " garden ; a fact which clearly indicates the race into whose 

 hands this branch of horticulture has fallen. Victoria is, I believe, the 

 only State in Australasia which has a, horticultural school where young men 

 can be trained as practical horticulturists, and the course of instruction 

 therein is both practical and theoretical, the former preponderating. Some 

 instruction in orchard training and fruit and vegetable culture is given to 

 students at the New South Wales experimental farms and orchard-, and 

 lo some extent also on the Queensland experimental farms. In all the 



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