COLOMBO 
Added as a Stipplement Monthly to the ''TROPICAL AQlilCULTUBTST y 
The following pages include the Contents of the Agricultural Maga?:ii}4 for 
February 
Vol. XL] 
FEBRUARY, 1900. 
[No. 7. 
1900. 
HE present number is the first of a 
new year (and indeed of a new 
century). Thile wishing that the 
the year 1900 has the maximum of 
good and minimum of bad in store 
for our readers, and that the agri- 
culturists in Ceylon will experience the best of 
seasons and reap abundant crops, we cannot 
but introduce a personal element into this senti- 
ment, and hope that the School of Agriculture will 
enter upon a new era- During the past year 
there has been a good deal of conference among 
those best qualified to give their views on ques- 
tions connected with agricultural work, including 
agricultural education, and it is to be earnestly 
hoped that the conclusion of thf whole matter 
will be a determination to establish an Agri- 
cultural Institution — call it a Department or 
what you please — worthy of the colony and 
capable of fostering its agricultural interests. 
A COMPARISON. 
We read in a review of the Report on the 
Madras College of Agriculture that though " the 
farm (attached to the College) is not maintained 
with a special view to profit on experiment, the 
fact that the net cost thereof was less than 
Rs. 500 is creditable to the management," and 
that a large share of the income is obtained from 
the dairy herd kept, on the fnim. 
Without in the least wishing to dispniage the 
efforts of our sister, instituiion in Madras, we 
should wish to point out that if we took credit 
for the income from our dairy herd in estimating 
the working of our.achool "farm" (to wit the 
cultivated area attached to the School of Agri- 
culture) the " net ineome " would be represented by 
a few thousand rupees, and this would be substan- 
tially increased if t.'-e Model Farm revenue was 
added. 
We feel inclined to envy the Madras College for 
beiug able to Uike credit for the income from the 
dairy herd in est imating the working of the experi- 
mental grounds, and placing it against the presum- 
ably substantial expenditure allowed for maintain- 
ing the latter— another circumstance which e.xcites 
our envy. How do we stand? Why our vote for 
the Experimen! al Garden is practically nil, while 
the income from the dairy herd, and the grass 
farms attached to the school and the Model Farm 
goes to the credit of Revenue. 
What the Colombo School of Agriculture has to 
deplore is the commercial spirit in which it is 
worked. It would be scarcely credited by th^^se wlio 
have had any corw eciion vir ii .^grimltur il Schools 
and Colleges, tlmt tin -■•■•ci il prnvi-ioii ah^i'ever is 
made for c'lnduci ,; < i' practical operations 
associated ^ith t''e i.'isi uction imparted in our 
School of AgricuUii/e. Not many years ago there 
was no dairv hei'd and no grass farms connected 
with the school, and though these latter now 
yield a handsome revenue, the school has the same 
needs now as it had then. Is it not reasonable to 
expect that the revenues referred to would have 
been utilized for the improvement and elevation of 
the school, especially when the institutions which 
yield the revenues are its offshoots, and their work 
dirticted from the school ? So far from this being 
the case, the greater part of the grounds is in a 
neglected condition for want of a vote for the 
necessary expenditure required to maintain it as a 
useful e.Tperimental garden, an objf-ct lesson of 
clean cultivation to the studpnts. and an oraa- 
mentfil puilieu <f the city. The wonder then is 
not that thi' echo'd has riot produced the best 
results, but th-it it hns been found possible to 
.secure any students for (lie clas,-es. In India they 
offer fcholarshipa and appointments to induce 
the study of agriculture ; here the prospeots, to 
the intending stucl«nt, are mgst discouraging. 
