The Department of Agriculture
The Experimental Institute of Agriculture at Victoria remained as the centre for the whole of the experimental work in Cameroon until the year 1911, when the Imperial Government created a Department of Agriculture at Buea to deal with all questions relating to organisation, while the Victoria Institution continued to undertake the technical and scientific investigations. At first the agricultural work was mainly devoted to assisting the planting industry in the Cameroon Mountains, but as the colony became opened up, fresh problems presented themselves. The reckless exploitation of the Funtumia elastica and Landolphia vines in the rubber forests led to the establishment of a special rubber inspectorate, and various arrangements were made for the development of all branches of native cultivation. Special small experimental gardens were created in the larger administrative stations of the interior and placed under the management of a European farmer or gardener, to deal with the cultivation by natives of products suitable for export. Later, a cocoa inspectorate was established to organise native cocoa cultivation in districts in which European cocoa plantations did not and were not likely to exist, and an experimental station was founded in the Jaunde district to encourage the cultivation of such crops as ground-nuts, plantain and manioc, with a view to export. At Kuti and Pittoa two agricultural experimental stations were established, primarily for the cultivation of cotton, but other branches of agriculture, including stock-raising, were embraced in the programme of work at these stations. In 1913 the agricultural staff consisted of fourteen first-grade, seven second-grade and twenty-eight third-grade officers.
The Institute at Victoria comprised a botanic garden and botanical and chemical laboratories, and the work carried on there included the raising of tropical economic plants, experiments in plantation culture and manuring, &c. Since 1910 young natives were trained as plantation managers in the agricultural school attached to the institute. At the cattle-breeding stations at Buea, Dschang and Djuttitsa (in the Dschang district), and Jaunde, the breeding of Allgau bulls and cross-breeding experiments with Allgau bulls and the indigenous humped cows were carried on with the object of obtaining draught cattle for the several districts and supplying meat and dairy produce to the Europeans. At the Dschang School of Agriculture, young natives were instructed in the use of the plough and in other rational methods of agriculture. At the Kuti station, in the Bamum district, and the Pittao station, in the Adamana district, the advancement of cotton cultivation is the primary study, but the programmes of work also include comparative cultivation experiments with indigenous cereals, pulses, root-crops, and fodder plants, the use of the plough, manuring and rotation experiments, cattle-breeding and cattle-keeping, and the training of native travelling instructors.
The Rubber Inspectorate established stations for rubber cultivation at Sangmalima (Ebolowa district), Akonolinga (Jaunde district), Dume (Dume district), and Djahposten (Lomie district), and the work comprised the distribution of Funtumia and Hevea plants to the natives, the superintendence of new plantations, the regeneration of the stocks of wild rubber which had become exhausted by careless exploitation, and the instruction of the natives in the tapping of rubber trees and the preparation and preservation of the rubber.
In order to deal adequately with the agricultural questions which arose locally in the various districts, most of the administrative stations possessed—apart from the established experimental gardens—agricultural officers whose duty it was to superintend local experimental fields and gardens. Such officers were employed, among other places, at Duala, Edea, Bara, Yoko, and Bamenda, the chief aim of the experimental gardens at these places being to develop the cultivation of export products, while experiments with foreign economic plants, yielding produce suitable for export, were also conducted.