V.

Commercial Geography deals with the production, manufacture, distribution and exchange, of commodities, and, generally, with all that affects the industrial pursuits of mankind.

Strictly speaking, the term commerce is applied to the exchange, on a large scale, of commodities or articles which are necessary to the existence, the comfort, or the enjoyment of man.

The "necessaries of life" are food, clothing, fuel, and the means of shelter and rest, and to these essentials of existence, civilized man, not content simply to eat and drink, dress and sleep," has added innumerable conveniences, comforts, luxuries, and, above all, intellectual pleasures and enjoyments.

"Without the prime necessaries of life we should soon die: deprived of many of the comforts and conveniences which by force of habit have become so interwoven with our daily life as to become practically necessaries, life would lose its charm; while the want of the means of intellectual enjoyments would make life hardly worth living. All these things are absolutely necessary to the well-being and progress of mankind. Necessaries and luxuries alike are drawn, directly or indirectly, from nature."-Yeats.1

Natural Products, or "Earth Gifts": "The supplies we obtain direct from the earth, the water, and the air, are the free gifts of nature. Hence, plants and animals, minerals and metals, the fish in the sea and the birds in the air, are termed natural resources.

Raw Materials, or Raw Produce, are those natural products or "earthgifts"-vegetable, animal, or mineral-which only require to be collected to be useful, or which must be worked up before they can be utilized for the service of Thus coal, iron and other ores, wool, hides, cotton (as imported), &c., are the raw materials of commerce. Skilled labour and intelligent industry, applied to these "raw materials," transform them into

man.

Manufactured Articles, every form of which may be almost regarded as a new product. "In every marketable commodity are three things, seen or unseen, (1) the material of which it is made, (2) the manual or mechanical labour bestowed upon it, and (3) the intelligence that entered into its design and construction." In this way the original "earth-gift," or natural product, may pass through a series of processes, each of which, although the material remains essentially the same, adds to its value and utility; thus, a piece of crude iron may ultimately assume the form of a delicate hair-spring, &c. Industry and skill are not, however, applied to the evolution of natural products in the same way; but, by blending natural products, or subjecting them to heat or other influences, we may form artificial products; and frequently evolve still different products by, as in the manufacture of glass, blending a natural product, sand, with an artificial one, potash. Chemical science, in extracting beautiful dyes from coal-tar, and other marvellous discoveries, show that the possibilities of elaborating new and useful products from the simplest "earth-gifts" are endless; and scientific experiment and research will, doubtless, yet endow the world with still more wonderful and immeasurably greater benefactions.

1. See further Chapter II. of Dr. Yeats's valuable and suggestive work-"The Golden Gates of Trade,' (London, George Philip & Son). This

and the companion volume-" Map Studies of the Mercantile World "-are indispensable "aids" to the teacher and student of Commercial Geography.

Plant-Products or Vegetable Commodities are of essential importance in commerce. Plant-products form the prime necessaries of life, and yield many of its comforts and luxuries.

Plants supply all the necessaries of life-cereals and other plants yielding food; the textile plants, clothing; and the timber-yielding plants, fuel and shelter. The plants most useful to man, and hence, commercially, the most important, are therefore the food plants, textile plants, and timber-yielding plants.

Food-Plants include cereals, or the grain-producing grasses, plants with edible roots, plants bearing edible fruits, succulent stems or leaves, and plants which yield sugar, spices, and beverages.

The Staple Food of a country is determined by its climate and soil, and also by the facilities of communication with other countries. Thus, the climate and soil of all European countries, except the more northerly, are favourable to the growth of wheat, but none of them, except Russia, Hungary, and the Danubian States, produce enough for their own use. To supply the deficiency, the enormous surplus of wheat grown in America, India, Australia, and elsewhere, is drawn upon, so that the staple food-material is not changed, although so large a proportion of it is necessarily grown in other parts of the globe. Similarly, rice is the chief food of millions in Southern and South-Eastern Asia, while millet is the "staff of life" in India and the Nile Valley, &c. Wheat is supposed to form the staple food of nearly one-third of the human family, the millets probably sustain another third, while rice forms the principal means of subsistence for considerably more than one-third of the inhabitants of the world. But wheat is, commercially, the most important of the three great food-plants. Rice, in spite of the vast quantities produced, does not enter into the commerce of the world in anything like the same proportion as wheat, and the millets are virtually grown for home consumption only.

Cereals: The most important cereals are wheat, rice, millet, maize or Indian corn, oats, barley, and rye.

All these cereals are grain-producing grasses, improved and developed by careful cultivation from time immemorial. They are the most valuable of the food-plants, as they contain all the elements necessary to support life, and they form the chief food-material of the vast majority of mankind.

Wheat is by far the best and most widely cultivated food-plant, there being, indeed, no part of the world "with a suitable climate and a sufficient population where wheat is still unknown." Wheat was grown in pre-historic times, still it is only within the last hundred years that wheaten bread has come into universal use among all classes, even in this country.

Rice is still more largely cultivated than wheat, and forms the staple food of twice as many people. Rice requires a high temperature and an abundant supply of moisture, and is thus the chief article of culture among the hot and densely-peopled plains and islands of South-Eastern Asia, the warm and humid regions of the United States, and other low-lying hot and moist lands.

Millet is an extremely nutritious and most prolific food-grain. Its innumerable varieties support one-third of the population of the world, but neither the great or spiked millets of India, the dhourra of Africa, nor the Guinea-corn of the West Indies, enter largely into the commerce of the world. In Europe, millet is chiefly used as food for domestic poultry and horses.

1. Hence its name, derived from the Latin, mille, a thousand, in allusion to its extraordinary fertility.

Maize, the only food-grain native or indigenous to the New World, and, at the time of Columbus, the chief food of the Indians, is still the principal "corncrop" in the United States and Mexico. Maize requires a long, warm, and sunny summer, with sufficient moisture (summer rains or irrigation) for a rapidlygrowing and luxuriant crop. It is thus, like rice, a tropical cereal, but can be grown in the warmer temperate countries, such as those of Southern Europe. In the form of "corn-flour" and "hominy," maize is used largely as human food in America and Africa, and less so in Europe, where it is chiefly used for feeding stock.

Barley, a most prolific grain, has a wider range than any other cereal. One variety grows farther north than any other food-grain, but barley generally succeeds best where wheat comes to perfection. It formed the chief food-plant

of the ancient Hebrews, Greeks and Romans, but now barley-bread is a rarity, except in a few of the more northerly countries, and the enormous quantities grown in European and other countries are used chiefly in the making of beer and whisky.

Rye is, next to wheat, the chief bread-plant on the mainland of Europe, and is also extensively grown in North America, but not for human food.

Oats thrive best in colder and moister climates than wheat, and are chiefly used as provender for horses, but oatmeal porridge and oat-cakes have long been, and are still, a favourite food in Scotland. Except in England, France, and the countries bordering on the Mediterranean, more oats than wheat are grown in all European countries.

Buckwheat is not a true cereal, and, though extensively cultivated, is not an article of considerable commerce.

Plants with Edible Roots: The most important tubers used as food are the potato, the most widely-distributed of all edible roots, the yam, and the manioc.

The Potato is a native of the Andean region of South America, and was introduced into Europe in the 16th, century, and is now cultivated in all parts of the civilized world. Potatoes are the main support of the peasantry in Ireland, and are said to form five-sevenths of the food of the poorer classes in North Germany. With suitable soil and climate, the potato is very prolific, but, from its liability to disease, it is rather an uncertain crop; its failure in countries where it is a chief article of diet causes great distress, and sometimes absolute starvation, as in Ireland in 1845-46, where the average production amounts to half-a-ton per head of the population. Being bulky in proportion to its value, the potato is not an important article of commerce, as it will not bear transit to any considerable distance. Early potatoes are, however, largely exported from the Channel Islands-"Jersey is almost one large potato-field "— and even from Malta and Algiers.

The Sweet Potato or batata, and the Arum or taro, are esculent roots grown largely in tropical and sub-tropical countries.

The Yam is the large root (weighing sometimes 40 lbs. or more) of a tuberous plant extensively cultivated in the West Indies and tropical Asia and Africa. The yam is a nutritious potato-like food, and is used as a substitute for bread.

The Manioc root contains a poisonous juice, which is expelled by pressure and heat. The meal thus obtained forms the Cassava from which Tapioca, a wholesome and nutritious food, is prepared. The Manioc is native to tropical America, and is also grown for food and export in tropical Africa and the East Indies.

Sa go is another farinaceous food, prepared from the pith of the sago-tree, a palm in extensive culture in the East Indies. Chisholm says' that so easy is the cultivation of the palm, and so simple the mode of preparing the sago from the pith, that ten days' labour is estimated to suffice for the obtaining of food enough from this tree to last a man for a year, while a single family is able to attend to a plantation containing 400 trees.

Arrowroot, a valuable farinaceous food for invalids and young children, is an important product of the Bermudas, West Indies, and other tropical regions.

The Onion is a true bulb of the lily family. It was cultivated by the ancients, and is largely grown for export in Holland, Egypt, &c. Other edible roots are turnips, carrots, parsnips, &c., but they are all grown for local consumption, being too bulky to bear the cost of carriage to any great distance.

Plants bearing Edible Fruits are very numerous, and their products are of considerable value in international commerce.

In the cooler countries, apples, pears, plums, cherries, gooseberries, strawberries, and other edible berries grow well; in warmer regions, the grape-vine, orange, lemon, and fig trees, pine-apple and banana plants, date palms, bread-fruit trees, &c., flourish in abundance. The bulk of the foreign Fruit Trade with this country is in Southern Fruits, i.e., oranges, lemons, grapes, currants, raisins, figs, almonds, walnuts, &c., which we derive from the countries of Southern Europe. A vast industry and a large trade in fruits of all kinds has sprung up, and is rapidly extending, in our Australasian colonies; and in Florida, California, and other parts of the United States, the fruit industry is very large. In all these centres of fruit production, however, the local consumption exceeds the foreign trade-in Southern Europe and elsewhere fruits form a large part of the food of the people, that is, they are not in those countries mere luxuries, as in more northerly lands.

Apples, the most wholesome and healthful of all fruits, grow abundantly throughout the cooler portions of the Temperate Zones, but, although vast quantities are imported from Canada and the United States, the apple is not consumed in England as largely as on the Continent or in America. Pears, cherries, red and black currants, strawberries, gooseberries, and other edible fruits, grow well in the same countries as the apple. The peach is a native of Persia, and, like apricots, requires a moderately warm climate.

Grapes, as a fruit and for making wine, are largely grown in all the warmer countries of Europe, America, and Australasia, in fact, there is no country with suitable soil and climate where the grape-vine is not more or less extensively cultivated. Grapes are unequalled as a table fruit.

Currants and Raisins are dried grapes-the best currants being produced in vast quantities in the Grecian islands, and on the mainland near Corinth (hence their name); while raisins come from Spain and other Mediterranean countries, &c.; the finest Sultana raisins (a seedless grape) come to perfection in Asia Minor. The best Figs are grown in the neighbourhood of Smyrna.

The Orange is one of the best known and most luscious fruits, the most celebrated being the Jaffa and the St. Michael's (Azores). Orange-growing is an important industry in the Southern Fruit' region of Europe; the orange groves of Florida and California furnish the chief supply to the New World; and this fruit is now grown in ever-increasing quantities in Australia.

L. "Handbook of Commercial Geography" (Longmans).

The Date Palm, a native of the warm and arid regions of the Old World, is extensively cultivated in the Oases of the Sahara, and in Africa and Western Asia, from Morocco to India.

Of purely tropical fruits, the banana holds the first rank as the most widelydistributed and the most nutritious. The banana is a very prolific fruit, and the produce of an acre will support twenty-five times as many people as the produce of an acre planted with wheat. It requires a mean annual tempera

ture of not less than 75°, and forms an essential article of food to the native populations of the Torrid Zone. Other delicious tropical fruits are the pineapple, mangosteen, mango, &c. Limes are grown chiefly in the West Indies (Montserrat) for lime juice.

The bread-fruit tree yields a most remarkable food, which, when roasted, resembles wheaten bread in flavour. It grows all over the Pacific Islands and the West Indies.

Of the pulses or pod fruits, which form important articles of commerce, the most familiar are peas and beans-peas in the cooler part of the Temperate Zones, and beans in the same and in warmer regions. The various kinds of pulses form important articles of commerce-they contain much nutriment in little bulk, and some of them are largely used as human food, and others for feeding horses and cattle. The chick-pea is a favourite article of diet in Spain, and forms a large item in the exports to her colonies. In fact, in all warm countries where meat is at a discount, soya beans and other pulses are essential foods. Ground nuts are favourite articles of food in Africa and America, and the carob bean, or St. John's bread (supposed to be the locust bean on which St. John the Baptist fed when in the wilderness) is abundant in Palestine, Cyprus, and other parts of Asia Minor.

Among edible plants with succulent stems or leaves are the common garden vegetables-the cabbage, lettuce, celery, &c.

4. Of plants yielding sugar, the principal are the sugar-cane, beet, sorghum, and sugar-maple.

The Sugar-cane, next to rice and maize, is the most valuable of tropical grasses, and is extensively cultivated in all the warmer regions of the globe. This plant is very sensitive to cold, and requires a tropical temperature. Climate and soil suitable to sugar-culture on a large scale are found in tropical America, especially Cuba and Brazil (from which most of the sugar required for the supply of commerce is derived), Mauritius, India, China, Japan, the Malay Archipelago, Northern Australia, and the Southern States of America.1

Sugar is extracted from the cane by crushing the stalks and boiling the juice thus "expressed" to the consistence of syrup, which is then put into shallow "coolers," and stirred until it crystallizes. It is then placed in hogsheads, from which the molasses is allowed to drain, leaving the muscovado or brown sugar, from which loaf and white sugar is produced by re-boiling and refining in the sugar-refineries at home.

The Beet is extensively grown in France and Germany for making sugar, and although an acre of sugar-cane yields twice as much juice as an acre of beet, and the cane is, besides, a perennial root-stock, while the beet has to be replanted every year, superior methods and machinery for extracting sugar

1. See further Dr. Yeats's "Natural History of Commerce"-a mine of information with regard to all Natural Products.