DOMESTICATION OF ANIMALS AND PLANTS 23 



and thus it was that agriculture had its beginnings in the fre- 

 quent failure of the hunt. 



As game grew more and more scarce the favorite fruits were 

 held in higher esteem, the places where the large-seeded grasses 

 grew were carefully protected, the other vegetation was cleared 

 away, and the beginnings of cultivation were made. The next 

 step was to gather stores of fruits, nuts, and seeds for the 

 winter, and, last of all, to plant and care for the very best in 

 some open space or bend of the river where fresh new soil 

 awaited occupation. Thus did cultivation begin, and thus were 

 women the first farmers. 



Nothing was more natural than that the best should be 

 gathered for eating, and the very choicest only reserved for 

 planting. In this way the first steps in plant improvement were 

 introduced at the very beginning of cultivation, and thus did 

 our ancestors early learn the fundamental lesson of all breeding, 

 namely, the better the parentage the better the offspring. 



This utilization of plants as well as animals added vastly to 

 the food supply and greatly insured its constancy and regularity. 

 Savages who followed this course prospered and encroached 

 upon their neighbors, while those who depended solely upon 

 the hunt suffered periodic famine and faced, in the end, extinc- 

 tion, 1 for in a state of nature the " law of the wild " obtains 

 among men as well as among the animals. 



However, man was unwilling to give up his animal food with 

 the growing scarcity of game. He had been in the habit of 

 slaughtering the best, 2 without regard to the future, — an utterly 

 wasteful proceeding, for in this way the hunt was not only fear- 

 fully destructive of numbers but of quality as well, and it is little 



1 Read the history of the Iroquois, or Six Nations, who raised crops, in con- 

 trast with that of the Canadian Indians who subsisted entirely by the hunt and 

 were often forced in winter to eat the skins and even the bark of their wigwams. 



2 It is always the largest buck that is singled out for the chase. The best of 

 everything is hunted, just as the woodsman, cutting a tree, even for exercise, 

 chooses always the straightest and best, while the forester, who is the product 

 of civilization, cuts always the worst, giving the best a still better chance. 



