Agriculture in the Tropics
An Elementary Treatise

This 1922 book is intended to provide the general reader with an understanding of agricultural resources within the tropics.

J. C. Willis (Author)

9781107600201, Cambridge University Press

Paperback / softback, published 16 June 2011

288 pages
21.6 x 14 x 1.6 cm, 0.37 kg

First published in 1922, this is the third edition of a 1909 original intended to provide the general reader with an understanding of agricultural resources within the tropics. The book is structured around descriptions of these resources and their potential for future development, numerous illustrative figures are also included. Because the text is written from a broadly colonial perspective, such development is largely seen in terms of an engagement between the modernising influence of dominant states and the 'primitive' environments over which they hold sway. This volume will be illuminating for anyone with an interest in agriculture, botany, or the colonial mindset.

Part I. The Preliminaries to Agriculture: 1. Land and soil
2. Climate
3. Population and labour
4. Transport and capital
5. Drainage and irrigation
6. Tools, tillage, manuring, chopping, etc.
7. Plant life in the tropics. Acclimatisation
8. Agriculture in the tropics in primitive times, and its gradual change
Part II. The Principal Cultivations of the Tropics: 9. Rice and other cereals and food plants
10. Sugar
11. Teas
12. Coffee, cacao or chocolate, kola, etc.
13. Coconuts and other palms
14. Spices
15. Fruits and vegetables
16. Tobacco, opium, hemp
17. Cinchona and other drugs
18. Fibre-yielding plants
19. Dye stuffs and tanning substances
20. Oil-yielding plants
21. Indiarubber, guttapercha, and camphor
22. Mixed garden cultivation by tropical natives
23. The diseases of plants in the tropics, and their treatment
24. Stock
Part III. Agriculture in the Tropics (General): 25. Village or peasant agriculture
26. The relations of the peasant to the land and crops, cultural systems, etc.
27. The financing of village agriculture, and the provision of local markets
28. The crops and methods of peasant agriculture, and their possibilities of improvement
29. Education of the peasant, and its bearing upon agricultural progress
30. Capitalist or estate agriculture
31. The agricultural needs of the planting enterprise. Summary of Part III
Part IV. Agricultural Organisation and Policy: 32. Organisation of agriculture
33. Agricultural policy
34. Departments of agriculture.

Subject Areas: Historical geography [HBTP]