THE DEPENDENCE OF MAN 9 



unlimited employment and skill, not only in design but in 

 execution as well. 



When we regard facts such as these and consider the mul- 

 titude of purposes to which wood is put, the use of pulp for 

 paper, the flouring of grains, the carding and spinning of vege- 

 table and animal fibers, then it is that we begin to realize how 

 generally and how fully our domesticated animals and plants 

 afford what might be called the raw materials of civilization. 



Medicinal properties of animals and plants. It is not only in 

 health but also in disease that animals and plants serve our 

 needs. Nearly all medicinal preparations are from some species 

 of plant, and each has its characteristic action on some portion 

 or portions of the body or its functions. 



Certain glands of animals, too, are coming to be much used 

 in the preparation of medicines. If the thyroid gland of the 

 child, for example, fails to develop, the mental faculties will be 

 impaired; but the calamity can be averted by feeding the subject 

 with the thyroid substance of the sheep. 



And so in countless ways our lives have come to be bound 

 up with those of the animals and plants that we cultivate, and 

 our ability to maintain our civilization and insure our continued 

 happiness will depend very largely upon the success with which 

 we can maintain these animal and plant assistants and cause 

 them to minister to our good. 



The business of farming. The systematic and continued pro- 

 duction of domesticated animals and plants, insuring a perpetual 

 supply of their products, is the business of farming. Considered 

 from the individual standpoint, we may like it or not according 

 to our natural bent and our like or dislike of animals and the 

 handling of crops, but looked at from the racial and economic 

 standpoint, there is no more important work for the continued 

 welfare of man than that of maintaining a continuous supply of 

 plant and animal products. 



Nor is this task a simple one. The supply must be ample 

 for an increasing population with increasing needs, although 



