CH. Il] AGRICULTURAL POLICY 213 



If, as in most tropical countries, the average level of agri- 

 culture is level 1, then all the factors A must be first attended 

 to. In Ceylon, for instance, capital is the weak point, in other 

 countries it may be land, or education. But it must be clearly 

 understood that all must be attended to, to raise the level to 2. 

 After that, the factors B come in and of course an Agricultural 

 Department may be working at B while the Government attends 

 to A. It must be specially noted that what is wanted for the 

 progress of agriculture at level 1 is on the whole quite different 

 from what is wanted at level 4. This is an important con- 

 sideration that tends to be lost sight of, now that there is a 

 rush into making departments of agriculture. So far as they 

 are technical they can only help people above level 2, except 

 in the item of provision of crops, which was the work of the 

 older Botanic Gardens. 



Speaking generally, the weakest point in the chain of 

 factors for the improvement of peasant agriculture, in most 

 tropical countries, is the provision of capital. It is not intended 

 to imply that enough education is provided, or that the land is 

 made sufficiently available by transport facilities, irrigation, 

 drainage, or what not, but simply that in the present condition 

 of affairs in most tropical countries there is little possibility of 

 further progress in peasant agriculture without the provision 

 of capital. The question of agricultural progress may be closely 

 compared to the physiological process of growth in a plant. If 

 an ample supply of heat and moisture be maintained, then 

 increase of growth will stop, when the supply of food is not 

 kept up to the standard of the other two factors. If this 

 supply be greatly increased, the next factor to break down 

 and stop increasing growth may be the temperature or the 

 moisture. Blackman 1 in dealing with this subject expresses it 

 thus : " When a process is conditioned as to its rapidity by a 

 number of separate factors, the rate of the process is limited 

 by the pace of the slowest factor." This slowest factor is called 

 the limiting factor, and in our opinion it is most commonly 

 supply of capital that is the limiting factor in agricultural 

 progress in the tropics at the present time, and until this 



1 i.e. p. 4. 



