AtJG. 1, 1901.] THE TROPICAL AGRICULTURIST. 
dad, each estate exported on an average produce of 
the value of £740, and this sum, at 8 per cent, is 
interest on £9,250, a fact not be despised when a 
coconut yfAlk is advertised for sale. 
I will not weary you with Indian corn or maize, 
which gives two crops a year, aud is only inferior 
to wheat as a nutritive aliment; or with rice, which 
is imported to the extent of £150,000 a year, and 
could be raised in the island for more than twice 
that value, were there pioper appliances to thresh 
and clean the grain ; or with coffee, every grain of 
which finds a sale in the local market, as Verdant 
Vale can testify ; or with tobacco, which has been 
pronounced as good as the Havana leaf : alas ! the 
secret of the curing rests with the Cubans and no 
one else — nor of the fruit, which is a drug in the 
markets of the Colony, and awaiting the success of 
Messrs. Elder, Dempster & Co.'s plucky venture in 
Jamaica; nor, indeed, of the spices, vegetables, and 
other riches which the marvellous soil offers eagerly 
to all who seek them ; but I will point out in a few 
worda the mineral wealth of which the Colony can 
also hos,st. —Journal of the Royal Colonial 
Institute. 
« 
SCHOOL GARDENS AND NATURE 
STUDY. 
MR. J. C. WILLIS' EDUCATIONAL 
LECTURE. 
(Special Report.) 
Mr. 3, C Willis, Director of the Botanical 
Gardens, Peradeniya, lectured to a large 
audience at the School of Agriculture last 
night on School Gardens and Nature Study. 
The chair was taken by the Bishop of Colombo. 
The lecture was of a different kind to those 
of the educational series that preceded it. It 
did not deal with the best and most practical 
methods of teaching particular subjects to 
junior classes : but had an altogether wider 
scope. It dealt with a new scheme for the 
teaching of Agriculture in Ceylon, a scheme 
already drawn up and ready to be put in 
practice. The lecturer did not begin at once 
by unfolding this scheme. 
Mr. Willis began by laying stress on 
the need for improvement in agriculture 
in Ceylon, and by pointing out what sort 
of character must be developed before any 
improvement could take place. He said 
that at present all the efforts made 
by his department to push the culti- 
vation of plants that could with ad- 
vantage be grown more largely here, such 
as cacao and cinchona, were unavailing owing 
to the resistance they met with through the 
ignorance of the people. There was also a 
constant waste |of materials owing to this 
want of knowledge. In Jaffna, where there 
was less ignorance, the scanty soil was made 
to produce more than was produced by the 
richer soil of the South-Western Province. 
Constant complaints were being received by 
Mr. Green against insects as pests, when, in 
fact, these very insects were often not 
only harmless but actually beneficial to the 
plants. The only way to combat these 
and the many other evils of ignorance was by 
THE TRAINING UP OF A MORE SCIENTIFIC 
SPIRIT. 
There must be developed a capa- 
city for taking accurate observations, 
and for drawing accurate conclusions 
from them. It might be remembered, said 
the lecturer, that it was by close and accu- 
rate observation that Sherlock Holmes spun 
those wonderful theories of his, whose cor- 
rectness was proved so conclusively in the 
Police Courts I For a proper scientific train- 
ing there should be first accurate obser- 
vation, then the collection of facts, then 
their classification, and lastly the deductions 
drawn from them and their application to 
life. The Germans were much ahead of us 
in their application of science to practical 
things. By their superiority in this, they 
had succeeded in crushing out the aniline 
dye trade in England, and they would very 
soon succeed in crushing the Indian Indigo 
industry as well.* Both with nations as well 
as with individuals, those who chose to 
neglect science must be content to fall 
behind in the world's race. It was in the 
training of those still at school that 
the greatest hope of improvement lay. 
Children were by nature more observant 
than adults, and their faculties of observa- 
tion should be encouraged. It was with a 
view to this that 
A SCHEME FOR SCHOOL GARDENS 
had been brought forward by the Director of 
Public Instruction in conjunction with the 
Director of the Botanical Gardens. Though 
the scheme was new here, it was not in New 
York where Professor Bailey (?) of the Cor- 
nell University had made it a great success. 
The gardens should be quite small, and useful 
and ornamental plants should both be grown. 
The seeds would be supplied by the Botani 
cal Gardens, and a travelling Superinten- 
dent would be sent to visit and exam- 
ine these gardens from time to time. 
They should be made to look as pretty 
as possible, and every scholar should 
grow a plant by himself. Circulars as to 
the laying out of the gardens, and leaflets 
with lists of plants would be supplied by his 
Department, and the master and pupils should 
make out the p'an of their gardens together. 
The products of the garden should be studied 
for object lessons. Leaflets to assist the 
teachers in this would be sent .them. The 
object lessons would need preparation and 
should be as informal as possible. The pupils 
should also be taken out into the fields and 
jungle and should be made to describe the 
things that they had seen. If they made in- 
accurate observations, they should not be 
corrected, but should be sent back to examine 
the things afresh. No other person's observ- 
ations should be accepted by them without 
their being proved by themselves. 
FORMER SCHEMES 
for agricultural teaching in rural schools 
had failed because too much had been 
attempted. Another reason had been that 
* The German Company here referred to, is, we 
have ascertained, the Badische Co. Stanfenfels. It em- 
ploys 148 skilled chemists, 75 engineers, and 305 
clerks, and makes a substitute for indigo by a syn- 
thetic chemical process. This product does not decay 
nor change its colour, and can be made much more 
cheaply than indigo can be grown. — This is how 
Germans make nae of their technical education t — 
Ed. T.A, 
