BOOK REVIEWS. 



423 



" Agriculture in the Tropics : an Elementary Treatise." By J. C. 

 Willis, M.A., Sc.D. 8vo., xviii + 222 pp., with twenty-five plates. 

 (University Press, Cambridge, 1909.) 7s. 6cZ. net. 



The author, who is Director of the Royal Botanic Gardens, Ceylon, 

 states in his preface that his object in writing this book has been to set 

 before the general public as clearly as possible something of the " political 

 and theoretical side of tropical agriculture, showing what such agriculture 

 really is, the conditions under which it is carried on, its successes and 

 disasters and their causes, the great revolution that is being effected by 

 Western influences, and other general principles underlying the whole 

 subject in whatever country it may be carried on." The book is divided 

 into four parts. The first part is devoted to the " Preliminaries to Agri- 

 culture," and treats of land and soil, climate, labour, manuring and 

 cropping, and kindred subjects. The principal crops cultivated in the 

 tropics are dealt with in part ii. The crops mentioned comprise rice 

 and other cereals, sugar, tea, coffee, cocoa, cocoanuts, spices, tobacco, 

 drugs, fibre-yielding plants, dyeing and tanning substances, oil-yielding 

 plants, rubber, gutta-percha, camphor, and native crops. There is also 

 a chapter on plant diseases, and one on live stock. The descriptions of 

 some of the crops are rather meagre, and it is this part of the book that 

 it seems desirable to enlarge in a future edition. 



A general account of agriculture in the tropics is given in part iii., 

 and this part of the book affords the best reading. In discussing village 

 or peasant agriculture the author writes : " The ideal of some adminis- 

 trators in the tropics has apparently been, and of a sprinkling of people 

 in Europe and America who have no acquaintance with actual tropical 

 conditions still is, a kind of ' old-fashioned Socialist ' one — a dense 

 population of small cultivators, each tilling his own little piece of land 

 and growing or making practically everything he requires. The nearest 

 approach to this is probably to be seen in outlying districts of many 

 tropical countries far removed from the influence of Europeans or 

 Chinese. In the most extreme cases there may be practically no 

 capitalist enterprise in the country at all, and the corollary is, of course 

 the absence of any appreciable export trade, or, in other words, so far as 

 the remainder of mankind is concerned the country might almost as well 

 be non-existent." 



Further on he states : " the white races of Europe and America at 

 present control the tropics, and they must and will have the products of 

 the latter in large quantities. . . . The white powers cannot and will not 

 allow the largest and probably the richest areas of the world to be wasted 

 by being entirely devoted to the supply of the native population, when 

 they are capable of both feeding a large population of their own and 

 supplying the wants of the colder zones in many food stuffs, fibres, oils, 

 timbers, and other useful products otherwise unobtainable." Other im- 

 portant matters dealt with in this part of the book are the financing of 

 village agriculture and the provision of local markets ; the possibility of 

 improving the crops and methods of peasant agriculture ; and the bearing 

 upon agricultural progress of the education of the peasants. In the 

 chapter headed " Capitalist or Estate Agriculture " the author shows 



