TRANSITION FEOM TRIBAL SOCIETY 283 



Population multiplied rapidly under these improved 

 conditions, and the food supply became inadequate in 

 certain densely peopled regions. Presumably by acci- 

 dent, it was found that the seeds would multiply them- 

 selves, and that the stick was more effective for grubbing 

 than the hand; when these discoveries were made we 

 have the beginning of the cultivation of the soil. But 

 we must not think of this agricultural stage of food get- 

 ting as always following upon the nomadic or pastoral 

 stage, because the resources of many regions will never 

 admit of agriculture and can only furnish a scant subsist- 

 ence for an occasional wandering herd. Thus the transi- 

 tion was not an invariable one from pastoral to agricul- 

 tural, but quite as likely there was the change from 

 hunting to agriculture, since we often find among primi- 

 tive peoples a degree of agriculture combined with the 

 hunting or fishing stage. We cannot assert the exact 

 chronological sequence of these stages because knowledge 

 of all the details is lacking. Some of the most careful in- 

 vestigators now believe that the domestication of animals 

 was not the achievement of the hunter at all, but of the 

 primitive farmer, and that the pastoral stage was an out- 

 growth of early agriculture. At any rate, it is reasonably 

 sure that the primitive tilling of the soil was carried on by 

 the hunters' wives and daughters as a subordinate and 

 auxiliary means of support. Only at a much later period 

 did agriculture acquire more importance. Not until the 

 game supply had been practically exhausted and the rov- 

 ing life of the hunter made impracticable was chief re- 

 liance put upon agriculture. 14 If the food supply was 

 bettered by the system of raising flocks and herds it was 

 made doubly secure by crop raising. As grain and wheat 



" Seligman, op cit. 



