24 Transactions. — Miscellaneous. 



selection commenced, between the products of the wild or self- 

 sown and artificially-sown plants there would be no difference, 

 and consequently nothing could be gained by transporting the 

 artificial fruits or roots where the wild might be obtained, 

 though from imitating the practice of planting a benefit would 

 certainly be experienced. This would probably account for 

 the large number of the Dioscorea that have passed into 

 cultivation in various parts of the world. 



Where the first agricultural community arose it is im- 

 possible to determine, but we may possibly discover where the 

 conditions necessary to such a result occurred. These condi- 

 tions were obviously a settled population, a regular climate 

 favourable to vegetable growth, a fertile soil, and fruits, roots, 

 or other indigenous esculents already in use. 



From the kitchenmiddens" or shell-heaps found along the 

 shores of the Baltic, and from similar remains in other parts 

 of the world, we learn that primitive races, who subsisted by 

 fishing, often occupied the same locality for a great length of 

 time. On the shores and islands of tropical seas, and in the 

 estuaries of great rivers flowing into these seas, the physical 

 conditions above enumerated occur in many places. Here, 

 then, fishing communities, having once received the idea of in- 

 creasing their supply of vegetable food by planting, might well 

 develope into agricultural communities, or even into agricultural 

 states. The Japanese, who have undoubtedly been an agricul- 

 tural people from a very ancient time, asserting that they are 

 the descendants of fishermen, still maintain the practice of in- 

 cluding a piece of seaweed or dried fish with any gift they may 

 have to bestow, regarding this as a token of their origin,! fish 

 being also the only animal food used by a great mass of the 

 people. Throughout the Malay Archipelago, also, fish and 

 vegetables fully supply the requirements of the inhabitants, 

 who thus seem to be constitutionally independent of other de- 

 scriptions of animal food. 



Pickering,! speculating on the origin of agricultm-e, made 

 the table-lands of Thibet, Mexico, and Peru the birthplaces of 

 the art. The open, garden-like nature of the vegetation, and 

 the mild, uniform, moist climates of these elevated tracts, 

 together with the many indigenous edible roots, would, he 

 considered, have suggested the idea of increasing the food- 

 supply by planting. On the other hand, he contended that 

 in a dense forest country the clearing of the land would 

 demand an amount of labour rude savages are incapable of; 

 but we know that amongst rude agricultural people who have 



* " Man before Metals." Professor N. Joly. 



t " Unbeaten Tracks in Japan." Mrs. Bishop (Isabella Bird). 



\ " Races of Man." C. Pickering. 



