101 



DISC.OVI'.HV 



Tropical Agriculture' 



By C. A. Barber, Sc.D., C.I.i:., F.L.S. 



This buok, \vc note from the preface by Mr. J. Mac- 

 Kenna, is based on a series of lectures delivered by the 

 author to his class of students in the Cawnpore Agri- 

 cultural College while he was Principal. As it deals 

 with the whole fabric of agricultural economics in 

 the United Provinces, its appearance at the present 

 time would appear to be singularly opportune, for the 

 daily papers are filled with accounts of widespread 

 disaffection among the peasantry of this part of India, 

 jMhere the agitator has been specially busy of late. 

 The lectures are apparently intended for the land-own- 

 ing classes, who have recently suffered considerable 

 losses from rioting and wholesale looting ; they were 

 not apparently intended for the education of the 

 cultivator himself, and this should be borne in mind 

 in reading the book, as it assumes a considerable 

 education and knowledge of local conditions. The 

 book will thus present difficulties for those not in some 

 way prepared for the vast differences between agri- 

 culture in a temperate climate and that in the warmer 

 parts of the globe, and for the special conditions pre- 

 vailing in the North of India. We should, therefore, 

 warn the student of tropical agriculture that, for full 

 advantage to be obtained from its perusal, much pre- 

 paratory work will be necessary. It is a book rather 

 for the advanced English student than for those who 

 are only commencing this complicated study. 



The author commences with a section on the origin 

 of the primitive community, tracing it in the first 

 instance to the increase in population and a corre- 

 sponding difficulty in obtaining food ; from this, by 

 easy stages, we are led to the formation of the village, 

 and, later on, to the great city, drawing its supplies 

 from distant parts of the country with the develop- 

 ment of railways, and even from different countries 

 as shipping increases. It is a fortunate circumstance 

 that, in this study of evolution, examples can readily 

 be drawn from India itself, where we hav-e all stages 

 from the wandering savage to the civilised inhabitant 

 of the large town. After thus laying his foundation, 

 the author develops his study in two directions 

 concurrently, namely, those of agriculture and eco- 

 nomics ; and in each of these a separate section is 

 devoted to the basis on which the science is founded 

 and on its development. 



Such a work is exceedingly welcome at the present 

 day. The student of tropical agriculture is at present 

 very badl\- off for books, and much of his time and that 



' The Bases of A gricullural Practice and Economics in the United 

 Provinces, India. By H. Martin Leake, M.A., Sc.D., F.L.S. 

 (Hcffcr and Sons, Ltd., 19.21. 15s.) 



of his teachers is inevitably dissipated in hunting up 

 papers in the agricultural journals of different countries 

 — a laborious and thankless task. It is true that a 

 number of treatises of great value have appeared from 

 time to time on single crops, such as cotton, sugar, 

 rubber, tea, coffee, cacao, and there are also several 

 books on what may be called " planters' products"; 

 but we are singularly deficient in works of a general 

 character. The book on tropical agriculture has still 

 to be written. And the reason for this is not far to 

 seek. Works of this nature, the description of the 

 vegetable products of a country and the methods of 

 cultivation and their extraction, need the personal 

 touch. This will not be present in anyone who has 

 not himself taken part in the work, and the domain 

 is so vast and varied that few sojourners in the tropics 

 can have studied adequately more than one or two 

 different regions. The compilation of a satisfactory 

 agricultural textbook of our own small country would 

 cover a number of volumes : what can we do with a 

 hundred countries, scattered over the tropical belt, 

 differing in almost every conceivable respect — physical 

 configuration and climate, races varying from complete 

 savagery' to ancient civilisation, widely diverse crojjs 

 and still more widely differing methods of cultivation ? 

 Any attempt to bridge this gap in our library is to be 

 encouraged, and Mr. Martin Leake's book, which deals 

 with fundamentals rather than details, and with a 

 wider aspect of agricultural economics, should be read 

 by every thoughtful student of the subject. 



To give some idea of the \'ariations met with in 

 tropical agriculture, judged by methods of cultivation 

 alone, it is first of all necessary to formulate some 

 method of classification. Among many possible ones, 

 we have divided the subject into three rough groups, 

 radically differing from one another — namel)-, the 

 collection of the produce of wild plants ; the settled, 

 ancient cultivation of civilised communities, self- 

 contained and devoted to their own requirements ; 

 and the cultivation introduced bj' European settlers 

 intent only on the export of their produce to the centres 

 of population in the temperate regions from which 

 they have migrated. These three differ very widely 

 in every respect, although they insensibly pass into 

 one another in most countries. 



The mere collection of the produce of wild plants 

 is characteristic of a primitive stage of development, 

 and yet we still receive some of our most valued raw 

 materials in this manner. Such, for instance, are the oil 

 from palms on the west coast of Africa ; rubber, until 

 recently obtained from the forests of the Amazon and the 

 forest regions of Africa ; gums and spices from the entire 

 fringe surrounding the great deserts of North Africa. 

 Sugar and spirit are obtained from the most varied 

 palms ; starchy foods from palms, cycads, roots ; 



