BOOKS AND CURRENT LITERATURE 31 



selection of a relatively small number of crops and plants from the 

 enormous nmnber involved in the agriculture of the tropics as a whole. 

 The fact that the same plant is often grown in widely separated re- 

 gions means that the selection of universal popular names is impos- 

 sible. Persons with experience confined to the western hemisphere 

 will not recognize in ''kapok" the tree known as "ceiba" in Spanish- 

 America and as ''silk-cotton" in the British West Indies. Other 

 plants with a rich s3^nonomy, such as the dasheen, or taro, are given 

 their entire complement of names. 



Inasmuch as the volume is designed to give information to the 

 prospective settler or investor, there is considerable importance in the 

 chapters on tropical climate and soils, on the general methods of tropical 

 agriculture and on the economic and social conditions of tropical lands. 

 It is of interest to find the fact getting into print that the tropical cU- 

 mate is not insidiously harmful to the white man if he will take active 

 phj^sical exercise, just as if he were still in the so-called temperate 

 region. — Forrest Shreve. 



