A.PRIL 2, 1900.] SuppUmmt h the '^Tropical Agriculturist." 
and that was that the School had not had a fair 
chance in the past. He did not mean to say there 
would have been anythiUj' necessarily defective in the 
ideas with which it was started, but funds had not 
been forthcoming for the fu!l carrying out of those 
ideas, and changes had been introduced from time to 
time which had prevented the carrying out of any 
one consistent idea. In estimating in any way 
the work of that school, they must not lose siirht 
of the fact that it had formed a centre 
round which a very large amount of use- 
ful work had been done in other subjects 
than those of Agriculture, strictly speaking, 
and by Mr. Rodrigo, the Manager of the Dairy, 
and he had no hesitation in saying, that its exis- 
tence had been ot very great service to the School 
had served as a centre, to which was to be at- 
tached a Forestry riass, which had also done ex- 
cellent Avork. It had been of great use also to tlie 
Department of Public Instruction by providing a 
local habitation to what was of very great use to 
the Department, namely a small Government 
Training School, and he might add that those who 
had been trained in that school had derived very 
useful knowlege of Agricultural principles, by 
being associated with that building. Ceylon was 
essentially an agricultural country. Living in 
Colombo they were apt to lose sight of that fact. 
They saw very little of_ agriculture in Col- 
ombo. The eyes of the people were rather 
fixed on trade and commerce and things 
in the way of manufacture, and were apt 
to lose sight of the fact that Ceylon wa« 
essentially an agricultural country, and was 
dependent for its prosperity mainly on agriculture 
of various kinds. It ought to be an axiom, that 
an Agricultural School or College ought to be 
one of the educational institutions of the island. 
(Applause). 
PRACTICAL AGMCULTURE. 
Mr. E, Elliott said he had simply come 
there, being naturally interested in the occasion, 
and to hear what had been doing in the School 
for the last tew years. Some years ago he ad- 
dressed them on a similar occasion. He was 
then a Government Agent. He was now a Goiya. 
(Laughter). He had practical experience for the 
last three years of growing a considerable 
extent of paddy, and he bad had, like a great 
many pioneers, to buy his experience. He 
had no reason to regret what he had done, and 
he hoped that before long he would be able to 
satisfy men of business of the soundness of the 
venture he had embarked on, and he 
was sure there would be a good many people, 
erelong, who would regret that they did not go 
in for coconuts and other low-country products. 
Of course, there was a great difference between 
the practical growing of a large area— he had 
500 acres of paddy— and the theoretical growing 
of two acres, under an instructor. One could 
not repeat on a large scale the immediate re- 
sults of what was practically horticulture. What 
he had seen of the students educated in that 
school convinced him that they were very 
satisfactory men. Several in the Eastern 
Province worked with him, and he was at 
present assisted very ably by a gentleman— a 
relative of the superintendent and bearing the same 
name. That gentleman had been most useful 
to him as an assistant, and the practical educa- 
tion which he had received in that school had 
been of most valuable assistance to him, and would 
" be, he trusted, of still greater value in time 
to eom^. He (Mr. Elliott) could quite sup- 
port the view which Mr. Harward had enunciated, 
that the .Agricultural School had been a decided 
success, though working under considerable diffi- 
culties for a number of years past. He had also 
had several coaimunications v/ith Mr. Drieberg who 
had given him vnrious hints aad assi.sted him in 
getting various kinds ot paddy, etc., and he was 
gladto be able to publicly acknowledge all tliat had 
been said of him on thatoccasion. He trusted that the 
new sche tie, that was under consideration for im- 
proving ihe school would include some ar- 
rangement for giving the school a good 
large piece of decenc land. They could not 
do much on the adjacent cinnamon land. What 
they wanted was a piDt of 50 or 100 acres of 
land, which they could practically cultivate on a 
respectablescale and make experiments on. Experi- 
ments, of course, cost money, and people who 
were working for profits could not afford to make 
experiments as fully and exhaustively as a Gov- 
ernment institution could. All o\er America 
there were Government farms, kept up at Govern- 
ment expense, where all sorts of things were grown 
and all sorts of manures were tried, and th« 
results published. That was what was wanted in 
Ceylon, not only as regards paddy, but even with 
other products. The native cultivator, after all, 
was not such a bad cultivator as some people 
thought. He was no modern agriculturist it vrsee 
true, but he had generations of experience and 
tradition, which stood him in very good stead. 
If he had had more time he might have pu* 
together some more ideas. Living as he aid, 
in the jungle, did not train him to pnblie 
speaking. (Laughter.) As Mr, Drieberg had 
said, he hoped, if there was any change, that it 
would not be of such a nature as to take the 
school out of the fostering care of Mr. Burrows. 
(Applause.) 
the mayor's forecast : cattle disease mat 
be stamped out. 
Mr. Price (Mayor of Colombo) proposed ft 
vote of thanks to the Director of Public Insfcructioa 
for so ably presiding at that meeting. They 
had all listened with much pleasure and gratifica* 
tion to his eloquent address ; and equally to the 
speech which Mr. Harward had given with his 
accustomed ability, and similarly to the practical 
remarks which fell from Mr. Elliott. None of 
them who lived here and there settled in this 
country could alfecfc to ignore the importance of 
agriculture, and he had listened with attention 
to the report which Mr. Drieberg read at the 
outset of the proceedings. One point specially at- 
tracted his attention, and that was what he said-— 
and others touched on afterwards— with reference 
to the education of Veterinary Surgeons, That 
wa3 most important as they all knew. He spe- 
cially recognized the importance, because a short 
time ago— a few months ago — he was considering 
and elaborating with the aid of Mr. W A de Silva, 
a scheme for quarantining all cattle imported into 
Ceylon from India, the object in view being to 
stamp out all cattle disease. At first they thought 
that if they obtained money and elaborated p, 
scheme and obtained the necessary legislation 
to enable them to inspect and quarantine every 
head of cattle imported from Inilia, they might be 
confident they would then succeed in eventually 
stamping out cattle disease in Ceylon. However ' 
he went to work slowly, on purpose, and after distt 
cussing it with officers of greater experience, 
they came to the conclusion that the meai« 
sure proposed was a good one ; but, he thoHgh> 
