APPENDIX. J 
One of the greatest difficulties, which is experienced in arranging 
such tests, in countries such as those which make up East Africa, is 
to get people competent to grow and to pick the crops when grown. 
For such tests one has to depend on European agency or native 
agency or a combination of both. Native agency by itself is not 
satisfactory, except in very few exceptional cases, and even in such 
cases frequent inspection would be necessary. European agency 
apart from officers of the agricultural services, means a Government 
official, a missionary, or, if there are any, a settler. The ordinary 
Government official is often quite willing to help, but being a touring 
officer, it means in practice that much of the supervision has to be 
left to native agency. More often than not, also, the Government 
official’s knowledge of agricultural operations is strictly limited. In 
any case, it is a question of goodwill, as the supervision of such 
cultivation throws extra work on him. The missionary, also, is 
usually very similarly placed to the Government official: his know- 
ledge of agriculture is limited and he is frequently away from his 
headquarters. Some of the Catholic missions might offer better 
scope, as they frequently have on their staff a lay brother, who is a 
horticulturist if not an agriculturist, but in their case they very often 
depend on the results of their labours for the funds with which to run 
the mission and extra work such as this would have to receive 
remuneration. The settler is usually too busy with his own crops to 
be of assistance. 
It thus appears that, except in very occasional cases, agricultural 
officers must look after such cultivation. It is not clear how the 
District Agriculturist can do this without prejudicing his work as a 
touring officer. He may be able to co-operate with the District 
Administrative officer, but this is largely a matter of personal 
relationship, which may be severed at any time by leave or transfer. 
Further, District Agricultural officers are few and far between. In 
the whole of Nyasaland there are only two such, so here at any rate 
there is no chance of their being able to conduct more than one or two 
such tests at most. Where there are sufficient Agricultural officers to 
run agricultural stations, in addition to district work, it might be 
possible for those in charge of the former to run sub-stations within 
fairly easy reach of their headquarters. 
The question of testing cottons is not merely a question of 
growing several strains side by side and taking the yield of each plot. 
Such trials must be repeated several times, and each plot of each 
series must be harvested separately. There are many other points 
which have to be considered. The land has to be stumped. The 
previous cropping of the land has to be considered. Newly cleared 
land, where there has been tree growth, is apt to affect the crop 
adversely and usually has a tendency to make the crop run to leaf. 
It is thus evident that definite and permanent sub-stations for such 
testing work should be instituted, especially as in many places these 
plots will have to be protected by fencing. The size and shape of 
plots is also an important question. = Whether any work has as yet 
been done to ascertain this is not known. 
The committee appointed to discuss the question might also 
record their opinion as to what records during the growing period of 
the crop should be maintained. indicating (1) those they think are 
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