POSSIBILITIES OF PLANTATION AGRICULTURE The Products of Tropical Plantations.—In Addition to rice farm ing another kind of tropical agriculture is helping to promote civiliza tion. It depends on the fact that the people of more bracing climates are willing to pay good prices for tropical products. Before the days of steam navigation when Europeans rarely came to the tropics, there was no agriculture for export. The rule of tropical farmers was "Grow only what you need and consume only what you grow." When Europeans came to the tropics, however, they began to want tea, coffee, cocoa, rubber, and other products. These at first were luxuries, but fast became necessities. In general they are, not like the ptaple food crops which have to be planted each year. They are tree crops which do not require frequent renewal. Hence they are raised in large plantations where the same kind of tree or bush is planted over wide areas. Coffee is a good example. Although small quantities are raised in regions such as Java, Ceylon, Central America, and Mocha, where it first became known, four-fifths of the world's supply comes from Brazil. There hundreds of thousands of acres of tropical jungle have been cleared of most of the trees, and coffee bushes have been planted in the shade of the rest. Tea flourishes under similar conditions, although it grows over a wider range of latitude than coffee. It is raised in great plantations on moist sunny slopes not only in places like Ceylon and the lower Himalayas north of Calcutta, but especially in southern China.
In the same way Europeans and Americans have established large plantations for the cultivation of the cacao tree, from whose seeds chocolate and cocoa are made. Some cocoa comes from tropical Africa, particularly the Gold Coast and the Island of Saint Thomas, and from Asia and the East Indies, but still more is derived from the jungles of Central America, the West Indies, and the northern part of South America.
Bananas grow in the same regions with tea, coffee, and cocoa. They prefer the moister parts of the jungle on the borders of the equa torial rain forest, and grow well in broad lowlands. In Central America, the West Indies, and the northern part of South America great corporations from the United States have cleared thousands of acres of jungle and planted it with this easily raised fruit. One
great company employs many thousand men and has regular lines cf steamships to bring bananas and other tropical fruits to New Orleans, Baltimore, Philadelphia, New York, and Bokon.
Rubber is raised in much the same way as bananas. The prin cipal plantations are in Ceylon, the East Indies, and the .Malay Peninsula. Part of the world's supply, to be sure, still comes from the wild trees of the forests of Central and South America, but the plantation is of constantly increasing importance.
Still other tropical plants such as the manilla hemp of the Phil ippines—the best of fibers for strong twine and rope—have their home in the jungle, but are gradually being raised more and more exclusively in plantations. The same is true of indigo, which is still raised in large quantities in India and Java in spite of the great use of aniline dyes made from coal tar. Quinine, the great remedy for malaria, is another article which was formerly derived from wild trees. Now, however, the cinchona tree from whose bark it is made is cultivated in plantations not only in the Andean countries of its origin such as Bolivia and Colombia, but in Java, Ceylon, India, and Jamaica. The sweet bark of the cinnamon tree, raised especially in Ceylon, is another sample of the many kinds of tropical products which are being more and more used by Europeans and Americans, and which lend themselves to plantation agriculture.
Sugar as an Illustration of a Plantation Product: Its Importance. —The most important of all plantation crops is sugar. Two hun dred years ago, the average person in England consumed less than 4 pounds of sugar per year, and the average American a decidedly smaller quantity. Before the Great War the average English con sumption was almost 100 pounds, and the American over 80. To-day sugar has become such an important food that the average English spaaking person consumes a third as much of it as of wheat. Ordi narily people do not realize the importance of the sugar supply, but during the Great War almost everyone realized it. In New York a temporary shortage actually led to riots in which mobs broke into stores that were supposed to have a supply. For many months no one could buy more than a pound or two at a time, and the names of the buyers were carefully recorded so that no one might get more than his share.