AGRICULTURE — GENERAL 305 



Katanga maps (mentioned in other chapters) has proved of value 

 in interpreting the reports. The committee proposes later to com- 

 bine the reports received in a volume on the human geography of 

 Northern Rhodesia. This should provide a basis for future work, 

 and if the procedure can be extended to other parts of Africa and 

 the results are made available in convenient form, the direction 

 of native development in agriculture and in other subjects should 

 be facilitated. 



In connection with European farming, scientific advance has 

 naturally gone further in South Africa than elsewhere. It has been 

 realized only in recent years by Governments and the farmers 

 themselves that South Africa is in the main a country for animal 

 industry rather than for grain. H. D. Leppan, Professor of Agri- 

 culture at Pretoria University, has developed this opinion in two 

 recent books (1931 and 1936), pointing out that more than 80 per 

 cent of the area of South Africa can never be used except for 

 grazing; that in a country where rains are apt to fail, animals can 

 be moved under necessity, but crops cannot. He claims that the 

 export of grain, especially maize, implies that some other country's 

 soil is being manured through the medium of domestic animals, a 

 policy which can hardly be economic in a country, such as South 

 Africa, where the soil is predominantly poor. On the other hand, 

 animal industry, if properly controlled, can help to rectify the lack 

 of soil fertility. 



The great problem for an agricultural country is stability in pro- 

 duction with a surplus for foreign markets. It appears that such 

 agricultural stability can only be attained in South Africa by 

 animal husbandry, except in the comparatively limited areas of 

 steady rainfall well distributed through the seasons where crops, 

 especially fruit, are highly suitable, or in areas where irrigation has 

 been introduced. 



This theme has been developed further in many recent publica- 

 tions from South Africa. For instance at the 1934 meetings of 

 the South African Association for the Advancement of Science, 

 Dr. A. L. du Toit, as president of the association, gave a lucid 

 summary of agriculture and mining in South Africa (1934), much 

 of it based on the conclusion that 'as so many authorities have 

 long pointed out. South Africa is in the main a pastoral and not 



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