126 AGRICULTURE IN THE TROPICS [PT. II 



get only just what they want in exchange for all their ball 

 rubber, is tending to break down by economic pressure, so that 

 the collectors may find it to their advantage to turn out larger 

 supplies of fine hard. 



Another highly important line of work lies in the encourage- 

 ment of cultivation of food stuffs, etc. ; at present the vast basin 

 of the Amazon, 2,000,000 square miles of the richest tropical 

 land, depends for its supplies mainly upon food brought up-river, 

 whereas it might quite well grow enough for itself at once, and 

 later export large quantities. But here comes in the difficulty 

 of getting over the established system of storekeepers on the 

 rubber properties, who exchange food and other goods against 

 the rubber brought in by the collectors, and naturally do not 

 desire to see the latter grow their own food. Cost of produc- 

 tion is further increased by the fact that there is no local labour, 

 and all has to be imported from the northeastern states of 

 Brazil, so that attempts at proper colonisation are being made 

 in the Amazon valley. 



Manufactories of rubber goods are being opened in Brazil, 

 hospitals are being established in the Amazon valley, and in 

 many other ways the amelioration of the inefficient and at 

 times even vicious system under which rubber is at present 

 collected is being taken up. The reduction of costs of produc- 

 tion in Brazil is a large and complicated problem, but it is 

 being taken up with determination, and there seems every 

 prospect of success ; incidentally it may be the best thing that 

 has happened to that country, by forcing the Amazon valley 

 to establish itself on a more sound, prosperous, and varied 

 economic basis, giving it a fair chance of developing into what 

 it ought to be, the richest and most prosperous agricultural 

 country of the tropics. 



As regards the other countries which supply wild rubber, 

 they are as yet doing little or nothing to meet the new situation 

 which is coming upon them, and there seems very fair likelihood 

 that much of the African rubber, for instance, may disappear 

 from the markets of the world. From the present year (1913) 

 plantation rubber will occupy first place on the market as 

 regards quantity. Ultimately, when the manufacturers have 



