io The Earliest Farming 



to the Saxons and Angles further north. ' The ease with which 

 they migrate ', he says, i is common to all the people in these 

 parts. They do this because of their simple style of life and of 

 their indifference to agriculture, and because they do not store up 

 anything, but live in huts and make provision only for the day. 

 Like the nomads, they get most of their food from animals, and 

 also, following their example, they fasten their goods on wagons 

 and roam about with their cattle wherever fancy takes them.' 



We can picture what was going on among the tribes at this 

 time. As the knowledge of how to grow corn spread among 

 them, there was a long struggle before the new habit of settling 

 down beat the old one of wandering. We can imagine with what 

 scorn and pride a strong, swift man who loved the roving life 

 passionately, and who had won great renown as a hunter, would 

 regard the proposal to abandon it. ' You ask me ', he says, * to 

 tie myself like a slave to a patch of corn. I can go for days without 

 food, and by speed of foot and stealth and steady aim I can get 

 the last deer in the forest. I can rear cattle to feed us with their 

 milk in summer and with cheese and meat in winter. You ask 

 me to give up the risks, excitement, and prizes of this life for the 

 certainty, dullness, and softness of a corn-grower's. It would 

 break my heart.' Against him were his mother and wife, and 

 perhaps even his father now that he was getting stiff with age 

 and with a digestion less robust. ' See ', they say, ' how much 

 nice food we get from a little stack of corn. It is at our door all 

 winter. If we can gather but a hundred sheaves, that will be 

 something secure, and then you can go hunting and fighting and 

 bring home more to add to our little store.' In time the brave, 

 hardy man surrenders. . The appeal of the fuller and more secure 

 livelihood is irresistible. He becomes a farmer. 



We may think that, when the method of growing corn was 

 once discovered, rapid progress would be made, and that there 

 would soon be great stretches of land under crops such as we 



