TROPICAL EXPLOITATION 63 
factors does not throw out the action of the old, so 
that the problem becomes more and more complex. 
Any one factor, if it cannot act properly, may limit the 
rate of progress until it is put right. 
Agriculture in its earliest stages may be largely 
summed up in the words, ‘‘ Grow what you want and 
consume what you grow.” It was essentially what 
would now be termed a peasant industry, but one must 
remember that in early times there was but little differ- 
entiation among the people. If for no other reason, 
there could not be further progress because means of 
transport were not yet developed, and so if a man grew 
what he himself could not consume, he could not get 
rid of it if his actual next-door neighbour did not happen 
to want it. : 
For this earliest agriculture, then, land available for 
use—that is clear of forest or grass, drainable, and 
supplied with sufficient water—and crops suitable to 
growth upon that land, were the only absolute requisites. 
The crops cultivated in those early days would of 
course be those which experience of the produce of 
the wild flora of the country had shown to be suitable. 
Thus in a forest-covered country the great struggle of 
the agriculturist, as it is to this day for the peasant in 
districts where the population is thin, was to prevent 
the crops being swallowed up by the continual in- 
pressing of the forest. 
As the country became cleared, paths began to be 
opened up, and gradually it became possible to grow a 
crop in one place and dispose of it in another, so that 
differentiation in labour, whether within agriculture 
itself or between agriculture and other occupations, 
