NOTES AND COMMENT 



187 



advocacy of a University of Tropical Agriculture. Proposals for such 

 an institution have been before the British public for ten years and, as 

 The Times dubiously states, "have attained the qualified success of 

 receiving official consideration." Mr. Lamont makes a strong casein 

 favor of an agricultural school of the highest character, calling attention 

 to the extent of British tropical territory, to the immanent exhaustion 

 of many spontaneous products which must henceforth be produced by 

 cultivation, to the great diverseness of tropical agriculture, and to the 

 need in which it -stands for the investigation of its problems and the 

 training of men to attack them and to disseminate the best obtainable 

 knowledge. As The Times further states, "The importance of scientific 

 treatment of soils, plants, and plant diseases is more and more recognized 

 in this country, where we have centuries of practical experience to guide 

 us. The tropical agriculturist has no such guidance, and his depend- 

 ence upon science is by so much the more complete. " The further sug- 

 gestion that such a University be located in the West Indies will be 

 warmly seconded in America. There is no distinctly tropical locality 

 on British soil which is as healthful and as accessible to Europe as the 

 West Indies. There could be no better location for the institution than 

 the island of Jamaica, which is only ten days from England, and pos- 

 sesses an array of climatic and soil conditions that would greatly extend 

 the possibilities of experimental cultivation. Perhaps the recent ap- 

 pointment of Sir Sydney Olivier, late governor of Jamaica, to the Board 

 of Agriculture and Fisheries will aid in the furtherance of Mr. Lamont's 

 scheme, as well as in the presentation of the advantages of a location 

 in Jamaica rather than in the more distant Trinidad or the flat and 

 crowded Barbados. 



We have received the first two volumes of a new serial publication 

 of the Forest Service, entitled Review of Forest Service Investigations. 

 The Review is designed as a vehicle for the publication of short contri- 

 butions and of reports of progress. It is purely technical in its charac- 

 ter and is addressed only to foresters and those interested in the details 

 of the work of the Forest Service. The Forester states in his Letter of 

 Transmittal that in the Review "a certain freedom will be given for 

 the expression of individual opinion." Can we believe our own eyes? 

 Are the men who are doing the scientific and technical work of our 

 government to be given so much fresh air as this? Of course the giving 

 of "a certain freedom" really means the giving of an uncertain freedom, 

 and this circumstance may prevent the members of the Forest Service 



