2 ORIGIN OF CULTIVATED PLANTS. 



them in order to profit by them. War and the chase 

 often interrupt attempts at cultivation. Rivalry and 

 mistrust cause the imitation of one tribe by another to 

 make but slow progress. If some great personage com- 

 mand the cultivation of a plant, and institute some cere- 

 monial to show its utility, it is probably because obscure 

 and unknown men have previously spoken of it, and 

 that successful experiments have been already made. 

 A longer or shorter succession of local and short-lived 

 experiments must have occurred before such a display, 

 which is calculated to impress an already numerous public. 

 It is easy to understand that there must have been de- 

 termining causes to excite these attempts, to renew them, 

 to make them successful. 



The first cause is that such or such a plant, offering 

 some of those advantages which all men seek, must be 

 within reach. The lowest savages know the plants of their 

 country ; but the example of the Australians and Patago- 

 nians shows that if they do not consider them productive 

 and easy to rear, they do not entertain the idea of culti- 

 vating them. Other conditions are sufficiently evident : a 

 not too rigorous climate ; in hot countries, the moderate 

 duration of drought ; some degree of security and settle- 

 ment; lastly, a pressing necessity, due to insufficient 

 resources in fishing, hunting, or in the production of 

 indigenous and nutritious plants, such as the chestnut, 

 the date-palm, the banana, or the breadfruit tree. When 

 men can live without work it is what they like best. 

 Besides, the element of hazard in hunting and fishing 

 attracts primitive, and sometimes civilized man, more 

 than the rude and regular labour of cultivation. 



I return to the species which savages are disposed to 

 cultivate. They sometimes find them in their own 

 country, but often receive them from neighbouring 

 peoples, more favoured than themselves by natural con- 

 ditions, or already possessed of some sort of civilization. 

 When a people is not established on an island, or in 

 some place difficult of access, they soon adopt certain 

 plants, discovered elsewhere, of which the advantage is 

 evident, and are thereby diverted from the cultivation of 



