i PRIMITIVE TILLEES OF THE GROUND 13 



why they cultivate so few other plants. No other 

 plant will produce so freely, and no other plant 

 will produce all the year round why should they 

 trouble with others ? The result is that, when at 

 long intervals there is not rain enough for the 

 banana, then the people are near starvation at once ; 

 they have nothing to fall back upon. 



CHAPTER II 



RECLAIMING THE DESERT 



WE have seen how, near the equator in Africa, 

 with everything in their favour, the natives of 

 Uganda can practically produce one food-plant only, 

 and that they do in the most wasteful and ineffective 

 fashion possible. Nature does almost everything 

 for them ; they are content with the food that can 

 be obtained with the minimum of effort, and have 

 never tried to learn better methods. As a contrast 

 with their ways let us look at what is being done 

 in the Far West of North America, in the hot, dry 

 regions beyond the Rocky Mountains, where nature 

 does less and man must needs do more. He has 

 succeeded in doing some wonderful things. Let us 



