THE AMERICAN ORIGIN OF AGRICULTURE. 4 93 



only deficient in indigenous food plants and animals, but the natural 

 conditions are distinctly unfavorable to agriculture. 



The whole surface of these flat coral islands is like the clean white-sanded 

 floor of an old English kitchen. The cocoanut tree springs up everywhere, but 

 in the spots where yams and taros are grown the sand is hollowed out, and a 

 pit formed, from one to two hundred yards long, and of varying width, into 

 which decaying cocoanut leaves and refuse are thrown, till a rich soil is formed.* 



It is certain, however, that among the Polynesians the cocoanut is 

 a cultivated plant no less than the yam, taro, sweet-potato, sugar-cane, 

 banana, breadfruit and numerous other species found in use throughout 

 the tropical islands of the Pacific. Moreover an especial interest 

 attaches to the cocoanut in that there are adequate botanical reasonsf 

 for believing that it originated in America, the home of all related 

 palms. 



The agricultural achievements of the Polynesians become the more 

 impressive when we reflect that so many of their cultivated species were 

 not propagated from seeds, but from cuttings. To survive the long 

 voyages in open canoes, these must have been carefully packed, kept 

 moist with fresh water and protected against the salt spray. In the 

 present state of botanical knowledge the number of species thus intro- 

 duced and distributed by the Polynesians is necessarily uncertain. 

 Many of the economic plants were native in some of the islands of the 

 Pacific, though their constant presence among the peoples of widely 

 separated archipelagos gives sufficient reason for including them in the 

 list of twenty-four species, which Professor Hillebrand + believes to 

 have been brought to the Hawaiian Islands by the early Polynesians. 

 This number, however, must be greatly increased, since there were 

 many varieties of the sweet potato, taro, sugar-cane and banana. More- 

 over the Hawaiian group is scarcely more than subtropical in climate, 

 and lacks numerous seedless sorts of the breadfruit, yam, taro and 

 other plants of the equatorial belt of islands, so that a complete enu- 

 meration of the species and varieties carried by the Polynesians would 

 include nearly a hundred. 



A detailed study of the distribution, names, cultures and uses of 

 these species and varieties of tropical economic plants would yield infor- 

 mation of much value from the agricultural standpoint, but of even 

 greater significance is its bearing upon the origins and migrations of 



* Moresby, ' Discoveries and Surveys in New Guinea,' p. 73, London, 1876. 

 The volcanic islands of Polynesia have, of course, rich soil, but they shared the 

 deficiency of native food-plants from which non-agricultural people could have 

 secured a permanent food supply. 



| ' The Origin and Distribution of the Cocoa Palm,' Contributions from the 

 U. S. National Herbarium, Vol. VII., No. 2. Washington, 1901. 



Bull. No. 95, Office of Experiment Stations, U. S. Dept. Agri., p. 33. 



