THE DEBT OF AGRICULTURE TO TROPICAL AMERICA^ 



By O. F. Cook 

 Bureau of Plant Industry, United States Department of Agriculture 



[With 7 plates] 



The extent to which our present civilization has drawn upon the 

 native agriculture of tropical America is seldom recognized and is 

 little understood by the general public. A new consciousness and 

 interest in civilization has developed in recent years from issues 

 raised in the war period. It begins to be seen that the origin and 

 growth of civilization should be studied primarily as a biological 

 problem in order to gain a more practical understanding of the 

 conditions and factors of human progress. 



Civilization is made possible by agriculture and the best prospect 

 of understanding civilization is through the study of agriculture. A 

 first step toward civilization was taken when plants were domesti- 

 cated and a settled existence became possible. The conditions of 

 agriculture are required, with people living as separate families upon 

 the land, for the experience of successive generations to accumulate, 

 and the arts of civilization to develop. A debt of appreciation is due 

 to the prehistoric domesticators of food plants who opened the way 

 of advancement for the race. A poet of humanity has enjoined such 

 a sentiment upon us, that we " forget not the forgotten and unknown." 

 The nations have enshrined their unknoAvn soldiers, but agriculture 

 is a service no less than warfare. 



The natives of America were inferior to the European invaders in 

 weapons and military equipment, but in the arts of agriculture they 

 had attained a higher development than any of the European na- 

 tions. Early accounts of Mexico and Peru reflect the amazement 

 of the Spanish explorers at the extent and perfection of the native 

 cultures. The modern traveler shares the same feeling when he 

 examines the remains of the ancient systems and finds that the 

 prehistoric people went far beyond our present conceptions of agri- 

 cultural possibilities. Study of the ancient systems may enlarge 

 our ideas of improvements that are possible in agriculture. The 

 industrial and commercial accomplishments of our civilization have 



1 Reprinted by permission from the Bulletin of the Pan American Union, September, 

 1930. 



491 



