18 AGRICULTURE IN THE TROPICS [FT. I 



carry his produce long and toilsome journeys to market. This 

 is a matter requiring early and careful consideration in all 

 tropical countries, especially those with " spare " land. 



With the advent of the motor car and of the motor lorry, 

 a new era seems to be about to dawn with regard to agricul- 

 tural progress in the more rural districts, for these vehicles will 

 be able to collect produce more rapidly, and from greater 

 distances from the towns, than the horse or bullock vehicles as 

 yet in use upon the roads. 



Railroads form a yet further stage in progress, and go, 

 generally speaking, with an export trade. They are now very 

 largely developed in India, and to a considerable extent in 

 Ceylon, the Federated Malay States, the larger West Indian 

 Islands, and Java, but in the remainder of the tropical zone 

 they are in general conspicuous by their absence. To work a 

 railroad with financial success of course means that there must 

 be a considerable amount of cultivation in the country which 

 requires to send its produce to distant markets unless there 

 is, as in the Federated Malay States, a considerable mining 

 industry and as yet this only exists in comparatively few 

 countries, and those the countries which have previously been 

 opened up by means of roads. 



Lastly, when by means of roads and railways the agricultural 

 produce has reached the port, it must be carried away by some 

 cheap and efficient means of transport. This is already provided 

 for the great majority of tropical countries in the numerous 

 lines of well appointed cargo steamships which ply almost 

 throughout the world. 



We have not yet mentioned, except in connection with 

 steamships, water carriage, which almost forms a genus of 

 transport to itself. In a very large number of tropical coun- 

 tries, the streams are sufficiently large, and free from rapids, to 

 be available for the passage of at any rate small boats. Lower 

 down larger boats or even steamers can ply upon them, and on 

 the whole, though slow, this is perhaps the cheapest mode of 

 transport, whilst also available at a very early stage in the 

 development of a country. Thus it is that the great valley of 

 the Amazon has been able to export many articles of produce 



