TROPICAL AGRICULTURIST 



AND 



MAGAZINE OF THE 



CEYLON AGRICULTURAL SOCIETY. 



Vol. XXXIII, COLOMBO, SEPTEMBER 15th, 1909, No. 3. 



Reviews. 



AGRICULTURE IN THE TROPICS. 



An Elementary Treatise by J. C. Willis, 

 M.A., sc.D., Director of the Roj'al Bota- 

 nic Gardens, Ceylon ; Organising Vice- 

 President, Ceylon Agricultural Society ; 

 Editor of the Tropical Agriculturist. 



Dr. Willis' long-looked for work on 

 Tropical Agriculture has lately reached 

 us, and will be eagerly read by all whose 

 duties bring them into contact with the 

 theoretical side of agriculture and the 

 problems of its improvement. 



The book is not a technical treatise on 

 methods of cultivation. The author's 

 object, as stated in the Preface, is :— 

 " To place before the public, as clearly as 

 may be, something of the underlying 

 ' political ' and theoretical side of the 

 subject, setting forth what such agri- 

 culture really is, the conditions under 

 which it is carried on, its successes and 

 disasters and their causes, the great re- 

 volution which is being effected by 

 western influences, and other general 

 principles underlying the whole subject, 

 in whatever country it may be carried 

 on." With this object in view the book 

 is primarily addressed to "the student, 

 the administrator and the traveller" by 

 an author who, in addition to being him- 



self a traveller and a student, will soon 

 be left without a rival to dispute his 

 position as the leading authority on agri- 

 cultural administration in the Eastern 

 Tropics, owing to the approaching re- 

 tirement of Dr. Melchior Treub, the 

 famous Director of Agriculture of Java. 



The book is divided into four parts 

 with the following titles :— Part I. The 

 Preliminaries to Agriculture. Part II. 

 The Principal Cultivations of the Tropics. 

 Part III, Agriculture in the Tropics 

 (general). And Part. IV. Agricultural 

 Organisation and Policy. 



In the first part Dr. Willis deals with 

 such matters as soil and climate, labour 

 and capital, irrigation and cultivation 

 and similar fundamental factors of agri- 

 cultural progress, from a general stand- 

 point, Avhilst Part II. contains a series 

 of separate sketches dealing with the 

 main products of tropical agriculture in 

 turn. In this part, in accordance with 

 the general plan of the book already 

 referred to, all' practical details of culti- 

 vation are omitted, but the student will 

 find here, nevertheless, a well-balanced 

 general account of the principal agricul- 

 tural resources of the tropics. 



It is to Parts III. and IV., however, 

 that experts and those specially inter- 

 ested in the progress of agriculture will 

 turn with special attention, for here 



