24 PROCEEDINGS OF THE 



Lave given impai'tial attention to the simultaneous care of crops 

 and stock. If recent times have seen some reversion to the early 

 differentiation, this has been a consequence of that wider economic 

 revohition which subordiiiatetl the interests of rural economy to 

 the exigencies of trallic and )iuinufacture. The form this change 

 has taken is attributable to neglect rather than to antagonism on 

 the part of unsympathetic forces. 



New and urgent exigencies now compel the State to substitute 

 control for neglect and to disregard the doctrinaire objections of 

 discordant interests. But the machinery of control is of necessity 

 largely guided by habits of thought, the product of the industrial 

 situation which has made the control imperative. The authority 

 to exercise that control is derived from a section of the community 

 which differs from its counterpart in earlier commonwealths 

 mainly in a disposition to provide its own amusements and to 

 endure discomfort without complaint while so engaged. It is 

 hardly surprising that those whose horizon is essentially urban 

 and industrial should tind their task full of complexity. The 

 natural historian can forgive their bewildered irritation at the 

 discovery that an appreciable increase in the output of starch 

 may, unless foresight be displayed, involve a compensating reduc- 

 tion in the supply of fat. 



While the standard crops of a region are maiidy conditioned by 

 the prevalent climate and soil, man, as a practical natural historian, 

 has often been a determining factor in the establishment of 

 staples whose introduction may have modiHed the economy and 

 iniiuenoed the civilization of a race. The importance of this 

 activity is shown by the existence of traditions that attribute the 

 cultivation of particular cereals in their several countries to the 

 agency of an Egyptian god, a Chinese emperor, or a North 

 American chief. J3ut we find illustrations of this activity that 

 are nearer in space and time. Two of our staple crops bear 

 names which reveal their foreign origin and their recent arrival. 

 The presence of these roots has, since the days of our grand- 

 fathers, revolutionized practice in one branch of husbandry. This 

 deliberate acclimatization of plants by man is, indeed, a matter 

 that deserves more than passing notice. 



One effect of the reliance we place on formal publication when 

 disputes as to priority have to be settled is a tendency to disregard 

 claims to which this touchstone is not applicable. The legend 

 as to the advent of wheat to Egypt, and the accepted account 

 of the introduction of the potato to Ireland, appeal differently to 

 our minds. The one we dismiss as a ' folk-tale,' the other we 

 commend to the attention of the conscientious historian. 



If we discard prepossession and consider the two stories w ith 

 equal sympathy we observe certain differences between them. 

 The first tells us that wheat went from one old world continent 

 to another ; the second assures us that the potato came from the 

 new world to the old. It took this country two centuries to 



