come necessarily
more dependent on the tropics. Where the sunshine falls straightest
and the rain falls heaviest there the food of the future will be
produced." Cacao, coffee, copra, cotton, rubber, sugar cane, bananas
and other fruits are all becoming increasingly important in our
consumption, and these and other raw materials are the product of a
scientific exploitation of tropical regions.[10]

More and more the West-European nations, as also the United States and
Japan, are realising these immense potentialities. Into many tropical
countries, new crops are introduced, experiment stations established,
railroads built, agricultural machines imported and efforts made not
only to bring new lands into cultivation but also to increase the
output of older lands. The experimental spread of cotton culture is a
case in point. In 1902 the British Cotton Growing Association was
created to promote the growth of cotton in British dependencies. The
fibre is now being raised in Egypt, Northern Nigeria and Central
Africa, while the possible output of West Africa, it is claimed, could
supply all the mills of Lancashire. An ample supply of cotton for many
decades to come seems reasonably assured.

The gradual filling up of the temperate zones emphasises the immense
future possibilities of the tropical regions. According to Mr. Earley
Vernon Wilcox, the total land area of the world is about 52,500,000
square miles (of which about 29,000,000 are considered fertile) and of
this total area about 15,000,000 square miles are to be found in
tropical and sub-tropical regions. "In 1914, the United States
imported tropical agricultural products to the value of $600,000,000,"
and the exports from Ceylon, Brazil, {92} the Dutch East Indies, Cuba,
Hawaii and Egypt were enormous. "The control and proper development of
the Tropics" writes Mr. Wilcox, "is a problem of tremendous
consequences. Year by year more tropical products become necessities
in cold climates. This is apparent from the mere casual consideration
of a list of the commonly imported tropical products, such as cane
sugar, cocoanuts, tea, coffee, cocoa, bananas, pineapples, citrus
fruits, olives, dates, figs, sisal, Manila hemp, jute, Kapok, raffia,
rubber, balata, gutta-percha, chicle and other gums, cinchona, tans and
dyes, rice, sago, cassava, cinnamon, pepper, cloves, nutmeg, vanilla
and other spices, oils, such as palm, China wood, candlenut, caster,
olive, cotton, l