CHAPTER II 



HISTORICAL SKETCH OF MODERN AGRICULTURE 

 I. THE EARLY STAGES 



Hunting not universal. In different times and places there 

 have probably been savages who never depended upon the hunt- 

 ing of animals and the catching of fish for their food supply, 

 subsisting rather upon fruits, nuts, and edible roots. Many 

 writers have been in the habit of saying that such people are 

 exceptional, and that the first stage of development in man's 

 struggle to get a living is the hunting and fishing stage. How- 

 ever, some recent writers have challenged that conclusion and 

 contended that the hunting and fishing stage has been confined 

 to certain localities where conditions are unfavorable to agri- 

 culture and where game and fish have been relatively abundant. 

 But even in those localities where vegetable food was relatively 

 abundant, it is probable that men lived by gathering the fruits, 

 nuts, roots, etc., which grew wild before they began cultivating 

 them systematically. Again, it has been too frequently assumed 

 that the second stage is always the pastoral stage, that is, the 

 sfcige in which men get their living by domesticating, herding, 

 and breeding animals whose flesh and milk furnish a supply of 

 food and whose skins and fleeces supply clothing and tents. On 

 the contrary, it is certain that, in some cases at least, the tilling 

 of the soil followed immediately after the hunting stage even 

 where men had lived mainly by hunting and fishing ; while it has 

 generally been the case that those tribes and peoples who formerly 

 lived on wild fruits, vegetables, etc., passed into the agricultural 



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