442 AKNTJAL REPORT SMITHSONIAN INSTITUTION, 1955 



do you want to go up this river? There's nothing up the river but 

 the banks." 



It is also true that a traveler on foot through humid tropical low- 

 land forests gets the idea of lush vegetation, and the impression that 

 the ability of the soils to produce plants is unlimited. Often these 

 forests are so thick and dense overhead that seldom can he see the 

 sky. If standing on the forest floor, he does not know whether it is 

 raining or whether the sun is shining up above the forest, until the 

 raindrops begin to fall to the ground. Where he must keep to the 

 trail, or cut his way through the vines and ground cover, and where 

 he is continually oppressed by the denseness and gloom of the forest, 

 to say nothing of the leeches reaching out for him from the shrubbery 

 along the path, he finds travel in these forests extremely unpleasant. 

 The difficulties of traveling through the equatorial rain forest of the 

 Congo basin are described, with great restraint, by Stanley in his 

 "Darkest Africa," though the woodcuts are totally inadequate to repre- 

 sent conditions within an equatorial forest. Yet after many failures 

 to get an adequate photographic record of conditions in the forest, the 

 cameraman is not inclined to be so critical of woodcuts I 



DIFFERENCES BETWEEN TEMPERATE AND TROPICAL REGIONS 



The differences between temperate and tropical regions and the vast 

 and rich, almost unexploited, timber and soil resources especially of 

 the Tropics continually appeal to the stranger.^ He cannot rid him- 

 self of the idea that there are vast fortunes to be made in tropical 

 regions, or, at least, tliat unlimited quantities of raw materials needed 

 in temperate zones can be obtained in such areas. An outstanding 

 example of this is the so-called groundnut scheme of Great Britain 

 which was undertaken in British East Africa. This resulted in a 

 shocking loss of capital, and the final results in oil produced were 

 disappointing, to put it mildly. Then there have been the efforts of 

 others to produce food in South America. Recent eyewitness reports 

 are to the effect that these schemes are producing most meager results, 

 considering the investment of capital. 



The history of agriculture in Malaya, Ceylon, and elsewhere in the 

 humid low latitudes in the production of rubber and tea is scarcely 

 known in the States, but 50 years ago the soil erosion in the orchard- 

 like tea and rubber plantations in those regions was appalling. Tea 

 and rubber seem to be able to get along on soils with only modest 

 amounts of plant nutrients, though for profitable production on ex- 

 posed subsoils (for the surface soil has often long since been lost) 

 both these crops respond well to appropriate applications of com- 

 mercial fertilizers. 



•For a graphically illustrated account of the selva, or tropical rain forest, 

 see Life magazine, September 20, 1954, p. 76 ff. 



