Chapter XI 



EFFORTS TO INCREASE FOOD RESOURCES 

 by Donald F. Jones 



HISTORY has much to say about generals and battles. 

 Its pages are filled with the deeds of emperors and 

 kings, too seldom glorious. But the major factor in the 

 growth of states and empires has been the origin and 

 development of domesticated animals and cultivated plants. 

 The United States has become a rich and powerful country, 

 primarily because maize, the corn of the Indians, was so 

 well adapted to the vast areas of tillable land that it laid 

 the foundation of a prosperous agriculture. Canada devel- 

 oped an early maturing wheat, well fitted to northern soil 

 and climate, and so opened a new domain for settlement. 

 Ireland lost one and one-half million people by death 

 and emigration when, for three successive years, the fun- 

 gous disease Phytophthora ravaged the potato crop. After 

 the discovery of a chemical spray that protected the plant 

 from the fungus, the Irish prospered. 



The plants and animals that nourish us, clothe us, and 

 shelter us from the weather are so taken for granted that 

 few stop to think how recently they became available. 

 Only after long effort and many years of patient searching 

 for useful plants and animals in every part of the world, 

 only after their gradual improvement for man's best uses, 

 did these products reach their present value in agriculture, 

 commerce, and industry. 



In "Ivanhoe" there is a banquet scene which gives a 

 vivid picture of early days in twelfth century England. 



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