THE AGRICULTURAL STAGE.
The general introduction of agriculture as a source of the food-supply marks the turning-point in the development of national growth. Agri culture puts a stop to the restless wanderings of the hunter and the nomad; it accustoms man to the salutary discipline of regular labor; it teaches him to work for the distant future; it fosters the sense of fixed property; it favors the congregation of individuals in large permanent communities; it allows leisure by offering facilities for the use of the labors of others. In these and in many other directions it introduces the conditions essen tial to a rapid industrial and intellectual development. The history of a nation begins when it relies mainly on agricultural products for its food.
In neither the Old nor the New World can we assign the date of the introduction of the cereals. That it was far in the past is shown by the difficulty experienced by botanists in discovering the wild forms from which the domesticated food-plants were derived. In America the maize was the principal and the only important cultivated food-plant of wide dis tribution. Starting from Central America (see p. 64), it extended north and south as far as the climatic conditions permitted its profitable cultiva tion. Nevertheless, the number of American tribes was not great which relied upon the culture of the fields as their main food-supply. Such was the case with the Peruvians, the Mayas of Yucatan and Guatemala, the Aztecs and some of their neighbors in Mexico, and with the Mound-build ers who once occupied the Ohio Valley. The Algonkins, Iroquois, and other tribes east of the Mississippi were in a transition state, cultivating extensive plantations of maize and other food-plants, but not yet weaned from their migratory habits, and still largely addicted to the chase for their food. The unfortunate fact that they had no domesticated animals on
which they could depend for meat forced them to seek it exclusively from the wild denizens of the forest and the stream.
The Aryans, as far back as the Stone Age, must, as their languages show, have cultivated in some rude manner barley and millet, which were also leading crops in Egypt long before the oldest extant monu ments. Rye and oats extended through Europe at a later date, but were cultivated in the Bronze Period. Bronze sickles have been found in great abundance in some of the settlements on the lakes of Switzerland and in Savoy, and in less numbers, but yet frequently, in Germany, the British Isles, and Scandinavia. Mr. Evans is even of opinion that a some what similar form of flint implement was manufactured for the same pur pose, and points to the cultivation of cereals during the Stone Age in England. The tillage of the soil was the foundation of the monarchies of Assyria and Egypt, and was always held in high esteem. In China rice was the most nutritive cereal, and its systematic cultivation began at least four thousand years before our era. Down to a late date, and per haps yet, the emperor of China performs once a year the ceremony of sowing a field, to indicate the high importance attached to agriculture.