viii PREFACE 



the largest users of tropical products among the nations of 

 the earth. 



The Philippines, American Samoa, Guam, Hawaii, the 

 Canal Zone, and Porto Rico belong to the United States. 

 The Philippines with their abaca, copra, tobacco, and kapok ; 

 Hawaii with its sugar, pineapples, coffee, and sisal; and 

 Porto Rico with its sugar, coffee, tobacco, citrus fruit, and 

 pineapples are important elements in the tropical world. 



Much greater development, especially in the line of diver- 

 sification of industries, is possible in all our tropical posses- 

 sions. Our business men are doing their part. They are 

 in the vanguard of tropical progress with their technical in- 

 vestigations and their studies of commercial conditions in 

 the Tropics. But there is a lack of information on tropical 

 agriculture among the general public. In fact, a woeful 

 ignorance prevails as to the essential nature and features of 

 tropical problems. I have been asked by otherwise intelli- 

 gent persons if Spanish is the prevailing language in Hono- 

 lulu, if pineapples grow on trees, and other equally signifi- 

 cant questions. How can the serious business of properly 

 developing our own part of the Tropics be accomplished 

 without the intelligent interest of the general public ? 



The literature of tropical agriculture would in itself make 

 a library of respectable size. In the appendix to this volume 

 I have given some hints as to the extent of this literature. 

 The chief contributors to this field of knowledge are English, 

 French, Dutch, Italians, Belgians, Germans, and Latin 

 Americans. Tropical agriculture has received only scant 

 attention from our writers. A few journals devoted to tea, 

 coffee, spice, fibers, and oils, occasional bulletins from the 

 U. S. Department of Agriculture, publications of the Ha- 

 waii, Porto Rico, and Guam Experiment Stations, and of 

 the Philippine Bureau of Agriculture, a volume on the 

 banana trade and bulletins from the Florida and California 

 experiment stations, constitute the most of our contribution 



