336 ANNUAL REPORT SMITHSONIAN INSTITUTION, 1957 



manent agriculture." The system is worked by a few progressive 

 Europeans whose extra output is not sufficient to depress the price 

 of maize. If every farmer followed suit there would be such a glut 

 that all would be ruined — or at least would be unable to buy the 

 necessary fertilizers. Under present conditions there would be insuffi- 

 cient demand for the produce. On the other hand, if all the people 

 in the towns could afford to live well, their demands would tend to 

 raise the price of maize, and some of the money they spent would 

 flow back into the soil. All — and it is a big all — that Rhodesian soil 

 needs to make it fertile is more and richer townspeople. Until it 

 gets them it will have to put up with a good second best — the mag- 

 nificent work of its agricultural officers. I should like to pay a tribute 

 to this handful of key men who, throughout our tropical Empire, 

 are smoothing out the agonies of the violent agricultural revolution 

 which has followed the breakup of shifting cultivation, and are 

 preparing the ground for the next, more prosperous stage. 



Most colonial countries are now in the early soil-exhausting stage 

 of evolution, and are developing social and agricultural systems 

 which will slow down the loss of soil fertility that is bound to occur 

 before the peoples are numerous and wealthy enough to enrich the 

 land. Today, in most colonies, agricultural society is being reorgan- 

 ized, largely by agricultural officers, on a basis of soil conservation 

 with laws, ordinances, sanctions, and subsidies to ensure at least the 

 safety of the remaining soil. One can see social systems evolving in 

 which it may be as difficult to mishandle the soil as it was in feudal 

 England. In a recent flight over Africa what impressed me most was 

 the quite frequent appearance of that most characteristic feature of 

 soil conservation — terraced, strip-cropped fields. It was also the 

 most beautiful feature of the generally dismal view one gets of Africa 

 from the air. The open fields of England might have given a balloon- 

 ist a similar impression 500 years ago. 



These emerging social and agricultural systems, designed to con- 

 serve tropical soils, tend to be less flexible and more compulsive than 

 those which are evolving in temperate regions whose inhabitants are 

 politically and socially more advanced. They may become as un- 

 adaptable to purposes of soil improvement, as distinct from soil con- 

 servation, as was the rigid three-field system of England. We are 

 acquiring the knowledge to make tropical soils fertile, but there are 

 still lacking millions of people in towns producing nonagricultural 

 wealth, the best fertilizer soils can have. 



CONCLUSION 



Throughout history the picture of Man in his relation to the soil 

 has had certain common features : his first struggle to adjust himself to 



