10 THE LAND AND ITS PROBLEMS 



years, and, secondly, some account of the condition of 

 the cultivators. 



The degree of civilization of a race of people is very 

 clearly indicated by their attitude towards the land ; 

 primitive man regarded the land solely as a happy 

 hunting ground ; he lived by what he could kill. In 

 the next stage we find man beginning to realize the 

 advantages of keeping domestic animals ; but for many 

 centuries, in northern countries, these domestic animals 

 were of a very poor type and obtained their living entirely 

 from the natural produce of the land, and it was a 

 precarious living in winter. Winter feeding of stock, 

 as we understand it now, is a comparatively recent 

 practice. 



It is only in what may be termed the third stage of 

 civilization that we find our forbears beginning to 

 develop husbandry ; then agriculture, i.e. the actual 

 cultivation of the land, had its birth, and it remained for 

 a long time in a very elementary state in northern Europe 

 and England. 



Modern agriculture, in which the use of machinery 

 and artificials play so prominent a part, may be said to 

 date from 1837, and the highly intensive cultivation of 

 the soil was not attempted until much later in the 

 century. 



PRE-ROMAN PERIOD 



The first mention of British agriculture known in 

 history is to be found in the story of the travels of 

 Pytheas, the enterprising Greek who sailed round the 

 western coast of Europe and apparently got as far north 

 as Norway. 



He visited various points on the English coast about 

 the middle of the fourth century B.C., and conceived an 



