Book Review: Pioneer Settlement in the Asiatic Tropics

AuthorGriffith Taylor
Published date01 July 1946
Date01 July 1946
DOIhttp://doi.org/10.1177/002070204600100313
Subject MatterBook Review
International
Journal
PIONEER
SETTLEMENT
IN
THE
ASIATIC TROPICS. By
Karl
J.
Pelzer.
1945.
(New
York:
Institute
of
Pacific
Relations.
Published
in
co-operation
with
the
American
Geographical
Society.
290pp.
$5.00
U.S.)
Most
of
us
have outgrown
the
old
idea
that
the
wet
tropics
are
regions
of
unusually
fertile
soils,
which
will
in
the
near
future
support
untold
millions
of people.
We
know
that
the
heavy
rainfall
has leached
out
the
soluble
plant
foods,
and
that
for
the
most
part
the
soils
are
much
less
fertile
than
those
of
the
drier
lands
in
the
temperate
regions.
In
our
own
lands
we
are
accustomed
to
the
need
for
soil
surveys, and
for
accurate topographic,
vegetation,
and
climatic
maps.
But
there
is
very
little
comprehensive
literature
available
to
the
layman,
respecting
the
actual
conditions of
new
settlements
in
tropical and
equatorial
lands.
It
is
for
this
reason
that
we
should
welcome
the
book
which
is
here
reviewed.
It
is
the
best
geographical
account
known
to
the
reviewer
(who has
visited
all
the
lands
described)
of
the
difficulties
which
beset
the
planting
of
new
colonies
of
farmers
in
the
jungles
of
the
tropics.
The
book
is
one
of
the
fine
series
published
by
the
American
Geographical
Society
of
New
York,
and
opens
with
a
foreword
by Owen
Lattimore.
There
are
three
parts:
the
first
dealing
with
land
used
by
primitive farmers;
the
second
with
colonization in
the
Philippines;
and
the
third
with
overcrowded
Java,
and
emigration
to
the
adjacent
islands
of
the
Dutch
East
Indies.
Dr.
Pelzer
is
a
well-known
geographer
who
spent
twelve
months
in
1940-41
travelling
through the
islands
with
which
he
is
concerned
in
the
book.
Pelzer
finds
that
the
agriculture
is of
two
kinds
in
these
lands:
the
"shifting-field
cultivation"
of
the
more
primitive farmer,
and
the
"seden-
tary-field
cultivation"
of
the
more
advanced
tribes
and
peoples.
Root
crops seem
to
have
preceded
cultivated
grain,
and
the
first
of
the
latter
seems
to
have
been the grasses
known
as
Foxtail
(Setaria)
and
Job's
Tears
(Coix).
Today,
however,
upland
rice
is
grown
by
the
shifting
farmer,
while
'wet'
rice
is
by
far
the
most
important
crop
in
the
irrigated
'sawahs'
of
the sedentary
farmer.
The
huge
areas
of
sawahs
which
are
so
striking
a
feature
of
south-east
Asia,
are'
relatively late
developments;
and Pelzer
believes
that
irrigated
rice
was
grown
in
small valleys
in
the
first
place,
rather
than
in
coastal
plains.
The
ladang
(i.e.
shifting
field)
in
the
past
merely supported
a
sub-
sistence
farmer,
but
nowadays
there
is
a
tendency
to
plant
pepper,
coffee,
and
rubber
as well as
the
food
crops
mentioned, and
this
may
lead
to
a
better
economy.
The
authorities
are
also
encouraging
the
farmer
in
elementary forestry,
with
a
view
to
improving the
growth
of
valuable
trees
on
their
ladangs. Terracing
and
animal
husbandry
are
other
devel-
opments
which
may
help
even
the
primitive
shifting-field
farmer.
Special
attention
is
given
to
the
settlements
in
the
south
of
Mindanao,
where
large
numbers
of
Japanese
had migrated
to
grow
abaca
fibre. At
Korondal
(south
of
Davao)
the
government
made
available
land
for
eleven
thousand
Filipinos
from
congested
districts,
and
each
settler
274

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