TROPICAL REGIONS 113 



extent capital will be applied to their development depends upon, 

 first, the amount of capital seeking investment in such special 

 forms, and this may for some time be limited ; second, the course 

 of meat prices, which is more likely to be upward than downward, 

 as compared with the pre-war level ; third, the facilities offered 

 by the various governments to capitalistic enterprise ; and fourth, 

 the progress made in the near future by veterinary science in over- 

 coming the destructive effects of animal diseases. 



It is noteworthy that in most of these highlands containing large 

 areas of undeveloped pastoral land, the most promising form of 

 stock-raising for export is that conducted by large syndicates, 

 financially strong enough to furnish the equipment, the improved 

 stock, and the other means of establishing the whole business on 

 the most modern lines. 



(b) TROPICAL LOWLANDS. 



For practical purposes in this enquiry, the term tropical lowlands 

 is taken to include all such areas within the tropics as are not 

 rendered distinctly temperate in climate by considerable elevation. 

 The interest of these areas lies in their indirect contributions to 

 the world's supplies of animal foodstuffs in the form of oil seeds and 

 nuts. 1 The utilisation of such materials for the manufacture of 

 butter substitutes and of feedstuffs has already been referred to, 

 and is daily growing in importance. 2 



It should be noted that cotton-seed, from which both oil and 

 oil-cake are produced, and which has therefore a similar indirect 

 value in relation to the supplies of animal foodstuffs as tropical 

 oil-seeds have, is almost entirely of warm temperate origin, and 

 falls, therefore, into the latter class only to a very limited extent. 

 Cotton, indeed, is rather a competitor with food-producing animals 

 for the utilisation of land in the temperate regions than an external 

 aid, in the sense that tropical oil-seeds are. 



1 The most important of these are palm kernels and copra, to which sesame 

 seed, a cultivated crop may perhaps be added. Besides these, there are two 

 others, namely, the ground-nut and the soya bean, which are capable of 

 extensive cultivation in warm temperate regions and in tropical highlands. 

 The former is now grown as a catch-crop in Southern India, but it can be 

 grown successfully in any warm, temperate climate. The labour difficulty 

 appears to be the chief obstacle to its wider cultivation ; other obstacles lie 

 in the facts that it is not sufficiently known and that markets are not properly 

 organised. The soya bean is cultivated at present mainly in Manchuria, but 

 the climatic conditions are highly favourable in South Africa, in the Southern 

 United States, and elsewhere. The chief obstacle to the more extensive 

 cultivation of this plant for seed production, in regions outside Manchuria, 

 is the difficulty in obtaining labour for harvesting. The soya bean is grown 

 as a fodder and hay crop in the United States, its feed value being as high 

 as that of lucerne. 



* In the year 1912-13 it is estimated that the various producing regions 

 together exported about 600,000 tons of copra and over 328,000 tons of palm 

 kernels. Prior to the year 1900 these materials entered little into international 

 trade. 



