Roman Britain and Early England 



WE shall probably never know in which country the art of 

 growing corn was first discovered, or whether it was hit upon 

 independently in more than one. Egypt is the country in which 

 we first hear of it, but long before America was discovered by 

 Europeans the natives had learned how to grow maize. The 

 inhabitants of Britain were comparatively late in gaining this 

 knowledge. Either by the migration of tribes from the mainland 

 of Europe, or by intercourse between Britons and tribes to whom 

 the art was known, agriculture had been introduced into the 

 country before any records which we now have were written. 

 The knowledge had spread north and west from the civilized 

 nations round the Mediterranean Sea. 



Caesar visited Britain in 55 and 54 B.C. and we get from him 

 the first clear account of what progress had been made. He 

 landed in Kent on both occasions. He fought his way up through 

 that county and through Surrey, and crossed the Thames above 

 London. In the course of their march his men found corn which 

 they reaped for their own use, and when he imposed conditions 

 on the British chiefs after they had been defeated, one of these 

 was that they should supply a certain amount of corn for his 

 army. They fulfilled the agreement. During his second cam- 

 paign he learned a good deal about the south-eastern part of 

 England. The chiefs told him that the tribes who lived close 

 to the coast had originally come from Belgium. They came at first 

 only for the purpose of making raids and carrying off the plunder, 

 but the more they saw of the country the more they liked it, so 

 they conquered the parts near the sea and settled down to cultivate 

 the land. These parts were thickly populated ; the houses were 

 numerous and the people possessed a great many cattle. 



