PART II 



INTRODUCTION 



AGRICULTURAL CONDITIONS IN THE LESSER 

 ANTILLES 



The chain of islands which with Httle irregularity of distribution 

 stretches from the Virgin Islands to Trinidad (Lat. i8° to io° N.) 

 affords much greater variation in the conditions governing 

 agriculture than is generally realized. It is true that the 

 difference in temperature, which is perhaps the first consideration 

 to occur to the mind, is not sufficient to have an appreciable 

 influence on the choice of crops, but temperature, in its higher 

 ranges, is among the least effective of environmental factors. 

 First in this respect comes the amount and seasonal distribution 

 of the rainfall, and closely related to this in its influence on 

 crops is the physical nature — lightness and permeability, or 

 heaviness and retentiveness — of the soil. In both these factors 

 there is a very wide range from island to island, and in regard 

 to the rainfall the difference from district to district even in the 

 same island may be extreme, and commonly is distinctly marked 

 in its influence — the degrees of contrast depending on the height 

 and distribution of the hills, and on situation in relation to 

 the north-east trade wind. 



The diversity of the conditions produced by the various 

 combinations of soil and climate in the West Indies has come 

 much more into evidence since economic changes rendered it 

 widely necessary to substitute other cultivations for that of the 

 once universal sugar-cane. That plant, with its produce de- 

 pendent only on vegetative growth, is adaptable to a wide range 

 of conditions which its successors, cacao, limes and cotton, with 

 their crops dependent on flowers and fruit, are quite unable to 

 face. 



The more intimate that one's knowledge of local conditions 

 becomes, the more one is impressed with the extent to which an 

 agricultural " natural selection," often at cross purposes with 

 the planter and his advisers, has determined and is proceeding 

 to determine what crops shall be grown in each restricted locality. 

 The principal part of the art of agriculture consists in artificially 

 modifying the environment so as to induce plants to grow in 

 situations and to an extent foreign to them in a state of nature, 

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