TROPICAL EXPLOITATION 81 
fields of the natives, other than rice and cinnamon, are 
things that were introduced by the Portuguese. With 
the coming of the Dutch the introduction of foreign 
plants was placed upon a more systematic footing, and 
botanic gardens were opened, whose principal business 
it was to attend to this introduction, and having intro- 
duced the plants to grow them in the gardens until it 
was reasonably certain that they would succeed in the 
country. By the time of the coming of the English to 
preponderance in the tropics, most of this work had 
been done, and the botanic gardens were decreasing 
in usefulness. For a long period, however, all that 
Governments did to encourage agriculture was to keep 
up these gardens, to attend to the question of crops, 
and usually to keep up a department to attend to land, 
and a third for transport. Only in recent years has the 
whole problem involved begun to be understood, and 
proper departments of agriculture formed to attend to 
as much of it as possible. 
But until quite lately there was no need for any 
scientific help other than in the provision of crops, 
with an occasional bit of assistance in dealing with some 
troublesome disease. Now, however, that nearly all 
crops in the tropics have been taken up with all the 
resources of land, crops, transport, labour and capital, 
the time has come when scientific assistance can be and 
must be provided in another form. It forms the sixth 
factor necessary for agricultural progress, and a great 
need of the day is a supply of properly trained young 
men who can work in the new departments of agricul- 
ture at the many problems involved. With the taking 
up of practically all crops by capitalist agriculture, com- 
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