November i, 1881.] THE TROPICAL 
AGRICULTURIST. 
407 
land? everywhere bright with flowers, amid magnifi- 
cent mountain >cencry, they found the primeval chin- 
chona trees ; it was no easy, summer day's task. In 
dense forests, on the verge of giddy precipices, with 
home's stiu'dng, ground choked with creepers, and 
fallen manses of twisted bamboo, thpy steadily, for 
many a day, fought their way, and the record of their 
work is well worth reading. Their collection was 
made at last; but their work did not go on undis- 
turbed by vexatious interruptions, even danger of 
arrest from local magnates, though carried on with 
the I 
prob 
quired 
seeds, 
In A[ 
in Eel 
al pit 
species 
merco 
a cult: 
tions 
into t 
of des 
deaths 
puttin 
into i 
couutl 
sulleri 
perf< 
d to 
anta- 
nultitui 
It rem 
t si 
vernment 
but too o 
research, 
of Mr. Ma 
not oidy 
valuable. ] 
the under 
the London marl 
riving large profi 
bar'i hirvests."— 
1 million and a half 
At least half these 
, be prevented by 
chinchona alkaloids 
e country, and thus 
m death or grievous 
d, in this brief, im- 
s work, to which 
negligence which 
xnctiou to scientific 
id unrewarded many 
vee, but what was, perhaps, more 
3ntly their health and strength in 
while the justification for such 
:ainlynot to be found even in the 
the work accomplished, since we 
ilyiris the whole expenditure has 
1 interest by tho rale of bark in 
;ct, and the Government is now de- 
is of many thousands a year from 
Spectator. 
SCIENTIFIC AGRICULTURE AND AGRICULT- 
URAL EDUCATION. 
There is no subject which is attracting more general 
at'ention in civilized countries in the present day than 
that of Technical Education. In this utilitarian age, 
the direct value of the Education imparted to the mass 
pi taing generation is being very closely criticized, 
and tho cry is spreading on every side that a great 
deal has yet to be done before it can be said that 
Bar pean, American or Colonial youth are taught or 
traiued in tho way best adapted for the work lying 
before them in life, Perhaps of all branches of tech- 
nical Education, that which ia the most, important, 
nam ly, the direct teaching of practical and scientific 
Agriculture has been about the last to receive the atten- 
tion it deserves. In England this is especially the 
ease. On 1 he Continent of Europe and in the United 
States of America, a great deal has been done by tho 
eatabli hment of Agiicultural Schools aud Colleges, 
Schools of Forestry, &c., to meet tho requin mi ut< of 
a largo proportion of tho population ; hut in England, 
Colleges or Schools of Agriculture may bo counted 
on the fingers of one hand, and as a consequence the 
British Colonics (which look to the Mother Country 
as their Educational guide) have been slow to realize 
the importance of affording a special training for their 
young people in the one supre mely important eection 
of Colonial industries. The depression of th* patt two 
or three years has done much to open the eyes of the 
British public to the backward condition of agriculture 
in the majority of English farming districts, and to the 
need of a special training, if future generations of land- 
lords and tenants are to bo enabled, with Tennyson's 
farmer, "to do their duty by the land." The one 
question which often lies at the centre of all others 
in social economy or political administration, is how 
can the greatest amount of produce be secured at tho 
least expense from an acre of ground ? The attain- 
ment of this result is a matter of science and art, 
and in regard to Britain it is pointed out that a 
wide distinction should be drawn between the science 
of agriculture and the art of funning. In the latter 
we are told the British farmer occupies no mean 
position, even though his art be based on empirical 
principles or on old precepts which will scarcely 
stand the strain of scientific investigation. But the 
great want of England is scientific agricultural re- 
search. Save for the work of Messrs. Lawes and 
Gilbert at ilotkamstead, and more recently of Mr. 
Janiieson for the Highland and Agricultural Society, 
little or nothing has been done by way of experi- 
mental inquiries. Very different is the case on the 
European Continent, and especially in Germany. 
There, we are told, numerous experimental stations, 
largely subsidized by Government, are exclusively 
occupied in working out researches which may eventu- 
ate in results of vast practical importance. We may 
feel sure, however, that scientific research into ab- 
struse agricultural questions will never be encouraged 
as it ought to be in Eugland until the British farmer, 
like the British engineer or doctor, receives an appro- 
priate scientific education. It is pointed out that 
even the well-educated men who take to farming in 
their youth as a 
little or nothing ( 
larly bear on thei 
or art, they may 
but their knowle 
botany and phys 
total blank. Of 1 
future livelihood know 
ces which mo e particu- 
1. In politics, literature, 
ble to hold their own ; 
smiatry and physics, of 
aiserably bare, if not a 
•0 arc exceptions duo to 
tho Agricultural College at Cirencester and a few 
similar institutions ; but it is now felt that, if the 
want is to be at all adequately supplied, an "agri- 
cultural curriculum," so to spoak, must form part of 
every school worthy of tho name in England, and 
especially of all Colleges and Universities, the prob- 
lems of medicine are complicated enough, but oven 
they, we are reminded, appear simple when compared 
with thoso of agriculture, and yet the tilling of tho 
ground with duo knowledge aud art ni"6t always be 
one of the nvsr. important of hu nan duties. There 
is no resisting the argument) therefore, that th« youths 
of Britain who are destined, whether as cultivators, 
tenants, or landlords, to live by the land, should bo 
furnished with the knowlcdgo best calculated to pro- 
oioto scientific agriculture. 
