BIOLOGY IN HUMAN AFFAIRS 



Delicious or a Bartlett, a few plums, cherries, and grapes; 

 but the fruit lover would look in vain for peaches. Straw- 

 berries would be there, but only the little wild fruit that 

 takes forever to pick. The grapes, too, though long 

 cultivated in the Old World, would not be particularly 

 fine in England. And even at their best the meaty, sweet 

 European grapes do not have the flavor and juiciness of 

 the native American grapes, so that many will agree with 

 Longfellow in saying: 



Very good in its way is the Ver^enay 



or the Sillery, soft and creamy. 

 But Catawba wine has a taste more divine^ 



more dulcet, delicious and dreamy. 

 There grows no vine, by the haunted Rhine^ 



by the Danube or Quadalquiver, 

 Nor island or cape, that bears such a grape 



as grows by the beautiful River. 



America contributed much to Europe; but there was an 

 even exchange. In fact, one may trace the westward course 

 of empire more clearly by the conquest of the soil and by 

 the introduction of new plants and animals than by military 

 triumphs. Following the paths of Cortes, Pizarro, Balboa, 

 and others who killed and robbed the natives, came the 

 Spanish missionaries to tell the Indians about the blessing 

 of Christian civilization. They rode their burros throughout 

 Mexico and what is now Florida, Texas, New Mexico, 

 Arizona, and California. Here and there they built their 

 monasteries and planted their grapevines, date palms, olive 

 trees, orange groves, and alfalfa fields. These plant intro- 

 ductions did not thrive everywhere, but in many parts of 

 the country they were the beginning of extensive and profit- 

 able industries. 



While this development was taking place in the South 

 and West, a similar pageant of colonization was taking place 



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