16 



[PT. I 



CHAPTER IV. 



TRANSPORT AND CAPITAL. 



Transport. Without some means of transporting goods to 

 a more or less distant market, agriculture cannot be conducted 

 upon the large scale, and the cultivator must consume his own 

 products. If transport is difficult and costly, he is necessarily 

 limited in his markets, whereas good and cheap transport 

 multiplies the value of his produce by extending his market. 

 Until this is provided, it is quite idle to expect any extensive 

 agriculture to be carried on, unless as occasionally but very 

 rarely happens the produce is so valuable that there is still a 

 profit left after meeting the expenses of costly carriage. This 

 might be the case, for example, with india-rubber at the 

 present time, and is the case with the gutta-percha collected 

 in the Malayan forests, though this collection cannot be called 

 agriculture. 



The most primitive mode of transport at present existing, 

 and one very common in Africa at least, is the carriage of goods 

 upon the heads of coolies along narrow paths winding through 

 the jungle or over the plain from one village to another and to 

 the nearest town. As one man can only carry a moderate load, 

 and for a moderate distance in one day, it is obvious that this 

 method, apart from other disadvantages, must be very costly, 

 and consequently that it can only open up distant markets to a 

 very limited extent, the profits in most forms of agriculture 

 being insufficient to stand heavy expenditure upon carriage. 



A step in advance of this is to have carriage along the paths 

 by means of pack animals, usually bulls or ponies. By this 

 means larger loads can be carried, and at a cheaper rate, and 



