roughest
possible conjecture. As regards more than half of the country, this fact
is explained by the dryness of the climate. Not only the Karroo region
in the interior of Cape Colony, but also the vast region stretching
north from the Karroo nearly as far as the west-coast territories of
Portugal, is too arid for tillage. So are large parts of the Free State,
of the Transvaal, and of Matabililand. Where there is a sufficient
rainfall, as in many districts along the south and south-east coasts,
much of the country is too hilly and rough for cultivation; so that it
would be well within the mark to say that of the whole area mentioned
above far less than one-tenth is suitable for raising any kind of crop
without artificial aid. Much, no doubt, remains which might be tilled,
and is not tilled, especially in the country between the south-eastern
edge of the great plateau and the sea; and that this land lies untouched
is due partly to the presence of the Kafir tribes, who occupy more land
than they cultivate, partly to the want or the dearness of labour,
partly to the tendency, confirmed by long habit, of the whites to prefer
stock-farming to tillage. The chief agricultural products are at present
cereals, _i.e._, wheat, oats, maize, and Kafir corn (a kind of millet),
fruit and sugar. The wheat and maize raised are not sufficient for the
consumption of the inhabitants, so that these articles are largely
imported, in spite of the duties levied on them. There is a considerable
and an increasing export of fruit, which goes to Europe,--chiefly to the
English market--in January, February, and March, the midsummer and
autumn of the southern hemisphere. Sugar is grown on the hot lands of
Natal lying along the sea, and might, no doubt, be grown all the way
north along the sea from there to the Zambesi. Rice would do well on the
wet coast lands, but is scarcely at all raised. Tea has lately been
planted on the hills in Natal, and would probably thrive also on the
high lands of Mashonaland. There is plenty of land fit for cotton. The
tobacco of the Transvaal is so pleasant for smoking in a pipe that one
cannot but expect it to be in time much more largely and carefully grown
than it is now. Those who have grown accustomed to it prefer it to any
other. With the exception of the olive, which apparently does not
succeed, and of the vine, which succeeds only in the small district
round Cape Town that enjoys a true summer and winter, nearly