686 THE POPULAR SCIENCE MONTHLY. 



in which their cultivation was established as the center whence it 

 radiated to different quarters. By this induction we are author- 

 ized to affirm that agriculture was first established in that part of 

 the ancient world which also furnished the most useful species of 

 animals for domestication. Asia has, in fact, contributed most of 

 our fruit trees, cereals, and economical and industrial plants. 

 The fertile valleys of the Euphrates, the Nile, the Ganges, and the 

 Yang-tse-kiang were acquired to agricultural civilization very 

 early. While we are not able to say which is entitled to priority, 

 we can distinguish two principal centers of cultivation in the an- 

 cient continent one in the southwest of Asia (Mesopotamia and 

 Egypt), and the other in the east (China, India, and Indo-China). 

 The former, which seems to have been the more important, propa- 

 gated barley, wheat, the vine, flax, etc. The second acquired 

 rice, tea, sugar cane, the mulberry, cotton, etc. A third center, 

 more tardily constituted in intertropical America, gave us Indian 

 corn, the potato, tobacco, etc. The north of Asia, Europe, South 

 America, the United States, and Australia have furnished very 



little. 



Without regarding the negroes and the American populations, 

 which, continuing nearly in their original savagery, and having 

 not even risen to the pastoral system, could give only an extreme- 

 ly limited aid to the establishment of agriculture, the credit of 

 having introduced high cultivation can be disputed only by the 

 three races which shared the dominion of the ancient continent. 

 The claims of the Mongolian race are distinct enough in conse- 

 quence of its long isolation. Some of its peoples have preserved 

 their nomadic customs. Only China and its annexes adopted the 

 new method of living. Yet, although agriculture has been long 

 honored there, its general advance has been less evident than else- 

 where, and the Middle Kingdom has hardly got beyond the prac- 

 tice of a highly perfected gardening. The claim of the Semitic 

 race is based upon the record of the two ancient empires, Chaldea 

 and Egypt, which were truly initiators. Yet, although it seems 

 to have given the first example, it had not the honor of making 

 the most decisive advances. Both pastors and cultivators, the 

 Semites perhaps made the most material contribution to the pas- 

 sage from the former kind of life to the other. The pre-eminent 

 agricultural race was that of the Aryans, which only exception- 

 ally ever led a pure pastoral existence, and the name of which is 

 associated with a root from which is derived also the word arare, 

 to plow as if the Aryans, to distinguish themselves from the 

 nomads who surrounded them, desired to give themselves the 

 characteristic appellation of plowmen* In Europe, and under 



* Max Miiller, Science of Language. 



