DEBT OF AGRICULTURE TO AMERICA — COOK 499 



trees to British India. Other experiments were made in the Dutch 

 colonies, and the present commercial production of quinine is in Java. 

 Following the introduction of the Cinchona into other parts of the 

 world, botanists were sent to tropical America for seeds of the differ- 

 ent rubber trees. Repeated efforts were made to obtain Hevea seeds 

 from Brazil, and a large shipment reached England in the summer 

 of 1876. The seedlings were forwarded promptly from the Kew 

 Gardens to Ceylon and Singapore, but commercial planting did not 

 begin till 1896, after a practical system of tapping had been dis- 

 covered. 



Sanitary control of malaria may have rendered the quinine 

 domestication less significant than it was at first, but cultivated 

 rubber has mounted rapidly to first-rank importance, both indus- 

 trially and commercially. Not only have the producing districts 

 in the British and Dutch colonies been transformed, but life in all 

 civilized countries has been profoundly changed through the use 

 of rubber in motor vehicles. The world was waiting to ride on 

 rubber, and in a few years has become thoroughly addicted to the 

 pleasure and convenience of rubber transportation. From an inci- 

 dental status as a water-proofing material half a century ago, rubber 

 has become the largest of our imports, and is recognized as an in- 

 dispensable material of our present civilization. The imports of 

 crude rubber into the United States during 1929 reached a total 

 of 563,812 tons, with a value of approximately $240,966,780. Also 

 motor vehicles are the largest of our exports, with the single ex- 

 ception of cotton. 



OUR TROPICAL HERITAGE 



Our acute dependence upon rubber may work a change in our 

 traditional neglect of the tropical aspects of our national economy. 

 Perhaps from excess of European patriotism we have refused to 

 recognize our tropical status and interest in tropical possibilities. 

 Little inclination has been shown in the past to consider that our 

 agricultural production is on a different footing from that of Euro- 

 pean nations. They see us as a tropical country, but we refuse to 

 consider ourselves in that capacity. Vast territories remain un- 

 utilized in our Southern and Southwestern States, awaiting more 

 suitable crops which probably must come from the tropics. Tem- 

 perate crops from Europe have been tried persistently since the first 

 settlements were made, but are restricted to winter growth, while 

 all of the crops that are grown in the summer are of tropical origin. 



The industrial expansion of some of the European nations in the 

 last century made them customers for wheat or other European 

 102992—32 33 



