684 THE POPULAR SCIENCE MONTHLY. 



to diminish that wealth will force the herdsmen to seek a supple- 

 ment to their subsistence in temporary cultivations. Compelled 

 to periodical migrations, they would adopt, in preference to fruit 

 trees propagated from the wild state by sedentary hunters, a few 

 plants of rapid vegetation, like the cereals, and particularly bar- 

 \qY, which matures in a short time. Fields are thus occasionally 

 sown around jDrovisional encampments, an intermittent kind of 

 agriculture, consistent with the care of the herds, as appears 

 among Arabs of the Tell in Algeria. In especially favorable re- 

 gions agriculture gained the preponderance, and the richness of 

 the harvests, accruing more rapidly than that of the herds, at- 

 taching man at last to the ground, caused him to change his 

 method of life. 



Still, the first men who gave themselves up to regular consecu- 

 tive work in the fields did not take their place without difficulty 

 in a barbarous world. Antagonism and war would not fail to 

 break out between the pastoral populations, jealous of their rights 

 of way and of pasturage, and the agricultural populations, which, 

 appropriating the ground put under cultivation by them, assumed 

 to reserve the fruits to themselves. The contest between these 

 rival interests and opposing customs occupied a period in the his- 

 tory of the ancient peoples, iln the long run the agriculturists, 

 more civilized, more numeroHis, and better united, at last carried 

 the day, took possession of the most fertile lands, and drove the 

 herdsmen into the steppes and the deserts, the only regions where 

 their system could be perpetuated in its primitive purity. So, 

 when pasturage and agriculture were developed in concert, a 

 marked classification was worked out between the two profes- 

 sions ; and while, in the beginning, such gods as Apollo, Mercury, 

 and Pan, or such kings as those of the Vedic age in India and of 

 the Homeric cycle in Greece, were not degraded by keeping 

 herds, the shepherds lost in consideration as the agricultural sys- 

 tem became more prevalent, and the business of attending to the 

 cattle fell more and more to the farm servants. 



The moment when man sought the chief support of his life in 

 agriculture is one of the most important dates of history, and 

 opened the decisive era of civilization. Till then, hunter or fish- 

 erman, he lived chiefly upon his catches, free or domesticated, 

 and, superior to carnivorous species, he differed froni them only in 

 having a more intelligent method of hunting. When he became 

 an agriculturist, he rose above all the animals by a manner of 

 living without analogy among them. He made the land his do- 

 main, cut down the forests, plowed the ground, and propagated 

 by industry the plants useful for his wants. From that time he 

 had at his disposal incomparably vaster resources than he could 

 draw from animals. His comfort, henceforth assured, depended 



