TROPICAL EXPLOITATION 5 
agriculture ‘be made to succeed ¢ To begin with, most 
of the land is covered with high forest, and the small 
cultivator will spend most of his time and work in 
fighting the continual inroads of the forest upon his 
crops. The only chance for any kind of rapid opening 
up is that people with sufficient capital to open up large 
areas should commence there. But if capital come in, 
then transport is also necessary, to get the crops away 
for sale in large markets. Now in the Amazon valley 
there is an absolutely unrivalled water transport avail- 
able, and this is the cheapest form of all, generally 
speaking. But even here great difficulties spring up. 
At many places there are great rapids in the big tribu- 
taries running from the south, and to escape these rail- 
roads are needed. A beginning of such lines has been 
made with the Madeira-Mamoré railroad, but many 
more are needed, and in the present state of the country 
they have nothing to depend upon but the carriage of 
rubber. A second great difficulty is the fact that 
transport is easy enough down stream, but unfortunately 
the boats have to come back against the current, and so 
unless they can get freight back, they must charge high 
rates for going down. ‘This reacts in a way which we 
shall understand better in a moment. For the present 
it will suffice to say that one of the chief factors against 
the opening up of the Amazon valley is the compara- 
tively high cost of transport. 
The cultivation of small areas by small cultivators is 
‘being pushed on by the Brazilian Government as much as* 
possible, for one of the chief causes of the high cost of 
getting rubber is the fact that practically all food sup- 
plies have to be carried up stream—none can be obtained 
