Horticultural Pioneers of the Tropics 
WHAT THE FEDERAL GOVERNMENT IS DOING TO HELP THEM 
David Fairchild, Agricultural Explorer in Charge of Foreign Seed and Plant 
Introduction 
Horticulture is an expression of hu- forest, grow up again to weeds and lianas 
man intelligence. It does not differ m 
this respect from sculpture or architec¬ 
ture. They all result in the creation of 
forms. There is this difference though. 
Horticulturists are working with living, 
growing things, whereas sculpture and 
architecture are concerned with materials 
which stay for ages where man puts them. 
But just as piles of rock or banks of clay 
do not make architecture and sculpture, 
so plants do not make horticulture. ' 
The tropics are filled with plants but 
there is amazingly little horticulture in 
the tropics. The great living persistent 
intelligences are not there. 
Look the tropics over and what do you 
find? Here and there some lonely, flick¬ 
ering, intellectual light which refuses to 
be put out by that wet blanket of indiffer¬ 
ence which will sooner or later smother 
any but the most brilliantly burning 
flame. 
It has been my peculiar position during 
the past twenty-two years to be in touch 
with these lonely intellects of horticul¬ 
ture scattered throughout the tropical 
world and the picture of their struggle 
continually stirs my emotions. 
They are building little places which, 
like the small clearings of some tropical 
as soon as the ^ood chopper dies. They 
select new varieties of fruits or vegeta¬ 
bles but these are lost again. They plant 
variety collections of their pets but when 
they die who cares for them? 
Around government-owned and op¬ 
erated gardens of the Tropical Colo¬ 
nies of various European countries there 
are little centers of horticulture which 
rally now and then the few congenial 
spirits who for short periods happen to 
be located there as officials or business 
men. As a rule, however, these are show 
gardens with laboratories attached to 
them in which research work for the 
planters is done on some of the staple 
tropical crops of the colony. Of tropical 
horticulture there is amazingly little. 
But if you have agreed with me that 
horticulture is the expression of human 
intelligence it can be easily shown why 
there is so little horticulture in the trop¬ 
ics. There are so few people there of the 
kind of intelligence necessary for its de¬ 
velopment. We are inclined to overesti¬ 
mate the white populations of the tropics. 
I wonder if many of you know that scat¬ 
tered over the whole group of islands in 
Hawaii there are only 30,000 white peo¬ 
ple; that Jamaica has only a little over 
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