36 TILLEES OF THE GKOUND CHAP. 



by constant growing of crops. This is very 

 important because it means that such people form 

 permanent settlements, whereas primitive people 

 have to be more or less wandering in habit, and 

 that makes wars and bloodshed and loss of life. 



Finally, the people who have these great 

 advantages many food - plants, a knowledge of 

 the need for ploughing, and for a rotation of crops, 

 and for manuring get from these the further 

 advantage that they can initiate improvements, 

 that they can alter their methods with changing 

 conditions. It was from those Mediterranean 

 peoples of which we have spoken so often that 

 we learnt farming. The skill that transformed 

 Egypt and Babylonia and the other hot countries 

 also transformed Britain from a district of dense, 

 unhealthy marsh and forest to a country covered 

 with smiling corn-fields and well-kept meadows ; it 

 multiplied the population a thousandfold ; it led 

 to the replacement of tribes of half-naked savages 

 by civilised and educated people. But it has done 

 more than this. 



With all the British farmer's skill, the land is 

 too small to grow food for all ; some of the popula- 

 tion must go elsewhere. From this little island 

 people have gone out to Canada, to the United 

 States, to Australia, to New Zealand, to India, to 

 the Argentine, almost all over the globe, and 



