, 1890-08-13
Agriculture and science.
Barbados Agricultural Reporter.)

rival OF the new Island Professor OF Cnem'
istry the occasion of the opening up the ques-
tion of the ACCESSIBILITY of extending the
teaching of Chemistry in our schools and
Colleges. Natural Science, our contemporary
declares, is not receiving at our hands the at
tention it deserves. At Harrison College
Chemistry is only taught in a half-hearted
sort of way at the Lodge and at our second
grade schools, not at all. 1t leads to nothing
in the way of scholarships, as do classics and
mathematics, that offer the means of going
to Oxford or Cambridge as a reward to the
most intellectual of our youth for striving to
attain proficiency in them. \ single lecture
a week IN Chemistry, at only ono OF our
schools and this Island dependent upon
agriculture alone for its means Of support
Ridiculous, to say the least of it and the
more evidently so when we reflect how large
ly we are indebted to agricultural chemistry
for the valuable aid it has rendered us IN
our struggle with the beet. 1t IS not too
much to say that if Mr. GEORGE HUGHES
had not pointed out to the Agricultural
Society the necessity Of guarding against
the adulteration of our artificial manures,
and the Society had not adopted its system
of control by analysis, we should now be
helplessly ~foundering about IN a dlsorgan-
ised state, ruined and in chancery. The
average annual crop for the seven years
1000 TO 1919, NdS ti'I'O u4uo
1873 to 1872 it was $4,000 from 1880
to 1886, during which period the chem
ist and the local manure manufactures
first appeared on the scene. 5000. The
average for seven years, 1878, will, we
venture TO say, show a great advance even
on this. The crop shipped for 1887 was
69,4l6 hhds. 1888, 72,4S9 hhds. 1889,
5,2O2 hhds. And who shall say where it
will endP Yet still the beet sugar produc-
ton increases by leaps and bounds, and this
much is clear, that if we do not take stepsto
put the rising generation of our planters IN q
better position to cope with the altered state
of the sugar industry, and to hold our own
against the ever increasing competition that
awaits them, they will probably, by the time
they have reached our age, find their occu-
patton gone.
The Planters Journal has put It's finger
on a great want in our educational system.
The subject is one of great Importance, and
we shall have more to say on it in a future
issue. To-day we shall only call attention
to some extracts from BrGdStreetS, taken
from one of our exchanges, the Louisiana
Planter, April Goth, showing how they do
these things elsewhere:
"Good work is being done by our Agricultu-
raj Colleges and experiment station, and by
the circulation by the national department
u ASL4CpAVuLO, onO " PV"0O S"AN ~
bearing on the subject, but at the best the
class reached is very small, The lmpor'
lance of the general diffusion of Agricultural
Science is growing. Haphazard methods OF
cultivation which might have done with viz
gin soil must be abandoned in proportion as
the area of that soil is restricted, The bright
er sons of the farmers are drifting away
from the farms to pursue more attractive
careers, and this tendency works IN the oil
rection of a deterioration of the farming class.
There is on this account the more need for a
greater diffusion of Agricultural Science
among the farming class. 1t is interesting to
notice that even in Europe, where conditions
have compelled q closer attention to agrlcul-
tural methods than has been the case IN the
United States, greatly increased attention
has been given to the subject of late years
'In France, more attention has been given
than in England to the matter of Agricultural
Education. Such education is provided not
only by primary and higher schools and by
normal schools providing teachers for these,
but also by lectures by i~tinerant professors
as we'll as by those having fixed chairs, by
local research and experiment stations, by
special agricultural schools and colleges, and
q central agricultural university at Paris.
The Government is encouraging the esta-
blishmeut of experimental plots, not so much
as stations for scientific research as fields OF
illustration of the good results of improved