General Notes 6 1 1 



the Tropics. Already important exporters of 

 such crops, their output can, and we believe, 

 so long as their water supplies are adequate, 

 will be doubled at least, with the improved 

 system for cultivation and the more modern 

 methods of preparing the crops for market 

 that the Governments through their various 

 Agricultural Departments are striving to intro- 

 duce. For the Agricultural Departments, how- 

 ever, to be successful there must be no doubt 

 about ample water supplies being always avail- 

 able ; without that nothing can live, neither 

 natives, stock, nor crop. This being so, we 

 feel it is well to devote the last words of 

 this book to warn our readers, who will, we 

 believe, include most of the Directors of Agri- 

 culture, as well as the leading members of the 

 staffs under them, against allowing excessive 

 deforestation of the lands under their control, 

 and particularly of exposed ridges and elevated 

 headlands, as indiscriminate clearances in such 

 places cause a serious diminution in the rain- 

 fall, which reacts on the water supply from the 

 rivers, springs, &c., feeding the estates, as well 

 as those working on them. Such effects also 

 are by no means confined to the immediate 

 area surrounding the lands being cleared, but 

 can and do, as we show further on, extend 

 far and wide even to other continents. This 

 being so the authorities owning the lands or 

 having the control of their development must 

 look around and ahead before deciding which 



