The Daily bulletin. [volume] (Honolulu [Hawaii]) 1882-1895, 1885-08-20
THURSDAY, AUG. 20, 1885.
THIS EVENINGS D0lNCS.
TROPICAL AGRICULTURE.

InUFIOHL HuNtuOLiunE'
Mr.. Jaeger has kindly furnished
US with the following extract from
the British Trade Journals
A long resolution published in the
last number of the Calcutta Ga
zette announces the formation of an
Agricultural Department for Bengal.
The duties of this department will
be classed under two main heads
those of agricultural research and of
agricultural improvement. 1t will
advise the Lieutenant-Governor in
all matters relating to agriculture
and statistics; and will supervise
the experimental Field Survey, under
the provisions of the new Tenancy
Act, which is to be instituted in the
district of Mozufferpore. Its duties
under the head of agricultural i'm
provement' are very elaborately
LAID down; and the cooperation of
established societies is invited. 1t
is also suggested that the Director
of Agriculture should form commit
tees in the various districts, through
whose help the improvements may
be extended.
There appears to have been q
birth of interest in all tropical coun-
tries upon the subject Of scientific
agriculture adapted to their climates
and soils. 1t would seem there is
no agricultural science extant, pos
sessing any degree of completeness,
for the guidance OF adventurers in
farming operations in these coun-
tries. While for temperate climes
agriculture has been reduced to a
science so exact as to make results
of given operations calculable almost
to unit, agricultural enterprise in
the tropics has as yet not got be-
yond the stage of experimentation,
except in the case of few indigo
nous products. A reason for this
condition of things may be found in
the fact that until recently the agri-
culture of the older tropical coun-
tries has been conducted by the
primitive races inhabiting those re-
gions. Consequently it conforms
to the other simple traditionary ways
of those people. A limited number
of sure productions sutliced for a
bare subsistence for them, as for
their fathers in generations innumer-
able. The crudest tillagc of the
soil, inherited from the remotest
antiquity, has been deemed good
enough for them. Civilization is,
however, in this age extending its
Transforming influence into every
corner of the earth. Peoples who
do not accept its sway are liable to
go down beneath the relentless tread
of modern progress. Many of them
perceive the reality of the situation,
and are giving practical assent to
the inevitable trend of human affairs.
Thus we hear of diplomatic con-
troversy between America and Tur-
key-antipodean nations in respect
of enlightenment and liberty-re-
garding the tariff on American-made
modern agricultural machinery, for
which large demand has sprung up
! in the far East. Those countries
might have gone in the old way for.
ever had not the pioneers of West
ern civilization intruded upon their
domains, bringing the breezy i'll
fluences of progress with them. II
is the Western civilizers that have
created the demand for science OF
agriculture adapted to tropical re-
gions. Pushing their way into
every part of the world, their rest
less enterprise, finding nothing more
promising of profit, has settled upon
agriculture as its sphere of mani
festation. Culture of tropical vege-
tation is, however, soon discovered
to be much different from that OF
the products of temperate climes.
There is nothing in the standard